Truex’s NASCAR Hall of Fame career has never lacked drama

Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalled a day from many years ago when he saw Martin Truex Jr. in the garage. The latter, as Earnhardt describes, was bewildered and beside himself in frustration at how terribly things were going with his race team.

“I felt terrible for him because I knew he was wasted talent,” Earnhardt told ESPN. “I knew he was wasting his good years not being in a good situation.”

Earnhardt doesn’t believe Truex will ever talk about how he struggled with the combination of race teams and crew chiefs he once worked with. This particular time that Earnhardt revealed, Truex had gone from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Michael Waltrip Racing, earning just two victories in his first eight seasons at the NASCAR Cup Series level.

Perhaps things would have been different, and maybe the Hall of Fame career Truex, 44, has since put together would have started sooner if Earnhardt had his way. Earnhardt once badly wanted Rick Hendrick to hire Truex. Having signed with Hendrick in 2008, Earnhardt tried to convince his new boss in those first few seasons to put Truex in his next available car.

“But you couldn’t convince anybody at that time that Martin had that kind of ability,” Earnhardt said.

Truex landed at Furniture Row Racing in 2014 and the rest, truly, is history. After a few building years together, aligning with Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing in 2016 changed the game. By 2017, Truex was a Cup Series champion and has been a perennial contender ever since. In five seasons driving for Barney Visser’s team, Truex won a championship and 17 races and had one finish outside the top 11 in the championship standings.

Joe Gibbs has been Truex’s team owner since 2019. He brought Truex in-house when Visser closed his doors.

Truex has won 15 more races in a Gibbs car and made the championship race twice.

“He had earned his way up in NASCAR, particularly at the Cup Series level, and really struggled through some years and paid a price,” Gibbs told ESPN. “To get him into our program as an alliance partner and see what he and Cole Pearn were able to do with the team they put together over there, it was great. So, to see someone who has paid a big price in the sport get to the top level and be a part of that, is a thrill for us.

“I think it says a lot about Martin. He paid a big price of struggling…