The announcement that Martin Truex Jr. will retire after this season took the NASCAR world by storm and left Joe Gibbs Racing scrambling to make its next move.
As the dust has settled, the speculation about who will take Truex’s seat has begun.
First, though, NASCAR legend Jeff Burton wanted to be sure everyone realizes exactly what the sport is losing when Truex Jr. hangs up the gloves. It’s not insignificant.
“You don’t replace Martin Truex Jr.,” Burton said on Motorsports on NBC. “Martin’s one of the most underrated drivers in the sport. If you look at what he’s done since 2016, no one’s won more races. No one. He could have won multiple titles. He went on a stretch there where he finished no worse than second and one of those was a championship for like five years. I mean it’s nut what he did. He set the standard.
“It wasn’t Kyle Busch, it wasn’t Kevin Harvick. It was Martin Truex, and I mean that with all respect comparing him to those guys because those are exceptionally exceptional drivers. But Martin was having more success in that section than any of those.”
Big shoes to fill. Of course, Joe Gibbs Racing already has some powerhouses in the lineup.
Denny Hamlin has been as competitive as anyone in NASCAR this season, sitting in third in the Cup Series standings. Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell are also in playoff positioning.
Burton pointed out that the latter two should help ease the transition, while also perhaps providing the mold for Truex’s replacement.
“I think Ty has done a great job for them. I think Ty has broken that mold a little bit, but he still hasn’t won,” Burton said. “He still hasn’t won and even though as good as he’s done, he still has not won. So I think if you’re a coach you’re looking at that saying, ‘If I have a rookie driver and I invest in that, Ty has done as well as I could have expected, but he still hasn’t won. This organization is about winning.’ So with the group of drivers that he has, with Ty he’s got a young driver. With Christopher he’s got a young driver.
“Those two guys can move well into the future and be part of that. Denny is certainly, not that he’s going to retire tomorrow, but he has way less racing in front of him than he has behind him with the age that he is. So there’s a transition coming with Denny at some point. This transition’s happened now, but I think that they’ll be looking for a driver that they feel like can win races immediately but also has growth ahead of them. Because I just don’t know that they’re going to… what’s the free agent they’re going to put in the car that has Cup championships, that they know that guy can win races on a consistent basis? So we’ll see what he does. It’s a difficult decision.”
Truex’s retirement comes at an interesting time because there aren’t many high-profile free agents out there right now.
If JGR goes the young driver route, it’s gambling, to a certain extent.
“The truth is that it’s a difficult decision for any organization to make, because when you do invest in a young driver you don’t really know what you’re getting,” Burton said. “I mean, you have an idea, but you don’t really know until it happens. So it’s a little risky. Clearly investing in young drivers is very important for the future of our sport.
“I don’t think they would hire, I don’t think they would put somebody in that position that doesn’t have some, at least some Cup experience. I think they would lean toward having more of a veteran even though it may not be a real veteran, but someone with real racing experience that they believe they can put in a position to be more successful than they’re currently being or have been. Because I don’t know that there’s any big-name free agents that they could go get. So I think that’s the position that Gibbs would take, but I don’t know.”
The bottom line for Burton is that figuring out how to replace Truex’s production isn’t a very easy task.
Joe Gibbs Racing has some tough decisions to make with Truex stepping away from the wheel.
“You don’t just replace that. You hope that over time you can replace it, but it’s hard to imagine that someone could just pop in there and immediately have the success that Martin’s had,” Burton said.
“But there’s a lot of talented drivers and they will hire someone that’s capable of winning. And I suspect they’ll hire somebody that we all look and we’re like, ‘Yep, that makes perfect sense.’ I don’t think they’re going to hire somebody that we’re all like, ‘What, what the hell is that?’ I think it’ll be a, ‘Yup, that was a no-brainer. That’s a good move.'”
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