Kevin Harvick retired after a lengthy, successful NASCAR Cup Series career following the 2023 campaign, and rumors are swirling regarding Martin Truex Jr. joining him as a former wheelman after the 2024 season.
The fact of the matter is nobody knows what Truex Jr. will be doing in 2025, except for Truex Jr. at the moment. Even then, he may not know for sure, whether he wants to return to the Cup Series for another season next year, or finally hang up his helmet.
As someone who’s been through the experience, Harvick doesn’t believe Truex Jr. dragging out the decision is the right thing to do, even if he doesn’t exactly know what he wants to do at the moment.
“I think for me, I didn’t want it to be this way. I didn’t want it to be just constant — what are we going on, Year 3? This has got to be the third year. I didn’t want it to be constant chaos, because the scenario that I see for Martin Truex is not fair to his team,” Harvick said, regarding Truex Jr.’s retirement decision, via the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour. “It’s not fair to his team guys, it’s not fair to his team, to just continuously go through these scenarios, of whether you’re staying or going, because you can’t build anything. You can’t build to get better. You can’t build to do the things that it takes to win a championship. Those cars are good enough to win a championship, but this is a sport of just being committed at the highest level, every day, and I just, it’s not that Martin isn’t committed to doing the things that he’s doing, the uncertainty just doesn’t allow you to go through the processes of building on the daily basis, because you don’t know what’s next year, and eventually, it’s bad for the team.
“I think we’re at a point where it’s bad for the team. You’re hearing a lot of rumors about Chase Briscoe going in that No. 19 car, with everything happening at Stewart-Haas Racing. Maybe they’re at a point where they feel like it’s time for them to move on, and just start rebuilding the No. 19 team to be what the No. 20 team is, be like the No. 11, No. 54. They have secure situations that are going to be there for years to come.”
Evidently, Harvick believes it’s time for Joe Gibbs to take the decision out of the hands of Truex Jr. moving forward, as the No. 19 team seems to be falling behind his other three cars, even though Truex Jr. has pieced together a pretty solid season in 2024.
“Is he coming back, is he not coming back?” Harvick questioned. “I just think at this point instead of year after year, at this point Joe Gibbs Racing has to say, ‘Okay we got to move on. We got to do something different. There’s the chaos of the constant questions and it’s hard to build a team. We’re not winning races, we’re running good, but we’re not winning the amount of races for all the hassle and everything that goes with everything that comes with the scenario that they’re in.’”
Alas, Kevin Harvick makes some good points, as someone who’s been through the process. What’s the end result going to be? The NASCAR world, along with Joe Gibbs Racing, are waiting on Martin Truex Jr. to find that out, and there’s no timeline available at the moment.
The post Kevin Harvick: Martin Truex Jr. dragging out decision is unfair to his team appeared first on On3.