You probably don’t remember where you were on June 23, 2013.
I do.
On that hot Sunday, I was working in the very hot back room of the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Springdale, Arkansas, biding time before I’d head off to graduate school in two months.
Why do I have any recollection of my whereabouts that day?
Because at one point I pulled out my phone to see who had won that afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway.
To my shock, it was Martin Truex Jr.
To those who aren’t familiar with the sport at the time, you have to understand one thing: For six years and 218 races, Truex wasn’t a winner.
His win that day in California was just his second ever in the Cup Series.
The gaps between his first win — in June 2007 at Dover Motor Speedway — and the Sonoma triumph was the series record for longest time between first and second wins.
After the race, Truex said “without a doubt” he felt like wins would be easier to come by.
Smash cut to 2015. Somehow, it was yet again June.
I was in my second season of covering NASCAR for NBC Sports. So for two years, I was guaranteed to be found on my couch every Sunday watching NASCAR.
Except on June 7.
I had the day off and was visiting an art and science museum in Fort Worth, Texas with my great aunt and uncle.
At some point, I again checked my phone on the status of that day’s race at Pocono Raceway.
Surprise!
After a drought of 69 races, Truex had won his third career Cup Series race, this time for Furniture Row Racing.
Taking all of this into account, there’s no way on earth I would have ever anticipated asking Truex the question that I did on January 24, 2018.
It came during the annual NASCAR Media Tour in downtown Charlotte.
“Have you allowed the thought to enter your brain that …. you will likely be inducted into the Hall of Fame?” I asked.
Two months earlier, and 12 years into his full-time Cup career, Truex and Furniture Row Racing had capped off an eight-win season by claiming the 2017 Cup championship.
The New Jersey native said the prospect that he could one day be enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame hadn’t occurred to him until a month afterward, during a Christmas visit to Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte to hand out gifts.
“I never thought about it until Winston Kelly actually said it to me,” Truex said, referring to the Hall of Fame’s executive director. “(He) always goes there…
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