Denny Hamlin is going to miss competing with Martin Truex Jr. who announced his retirement from NASCAR last week. On hisActions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin reacted to Truex leaving the sport while looking back at his career.
“You always wondered when would that moment come with Martin,” Hamlin said. “I think that he’s competitive enough, he wants to leave on top, and from what I gathered from that press conference he just wants more time. And the time that it takes to be competitive at the Cup level, it takes a lot of commitment and a lot of time. For the last 20-some years, he’s had to live by a schedule that somebody else made for him and now wants to make his own schedule.
“It sounded like he was open to running some races next year in Xfinity car or something like that because I do think he’ll miss it. Martin Truex definitely has waves of passion for the sport. Sometimes it’s lower, sometimes it’s higher. He’s at an age where he just wants to go do his own thing. He’s always been a very independent person. You don’t read much off-track news from Martin Truex. That’s just the way that he is and the way he carries himself. But you never questioned his God-given talent.”
Hamlin added that Truex was “so good” and a driver who was in the same rookie class with him in 2006. “He was the barometer of performance,” Hamlin revealed. “He just was so good each and every week when he was running with Chance 2 and Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. back in the year he won the championship.”
Why is Martin Truex Jr. retiring from NASCAR?
Truex was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers for what he accomplished in his career. In 669 races, the 43-year-old has earned 34 victories and 287 top-10 finishes. Truex won the Cup Series title in 2017 and claimed the regular season championship that year and in 2023. He’s a two-time winner of the Coca-Cola 600 and won the Southern 500 in 2016.
During his press conference last week, Truex explained why he’s retiring. “Just felt like the right time for me,” Truex said. “Honestly, I’ve thought about it a lot the past few seasons and just waited for, waited for that feeling in my mind to be positive. Like, this is, okay I’m good, I want to do something else. Yeah, something just felt different this year for me I felt like it was time to slow down and do something else. It’s been a great ride, though, obviously.”
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