NASCAR Cup

Martin Truex Jr. preview

Martinsville

Edited: Mar 30, 2011, 4:14 AM

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CORNELIUS, N.C. — After the first five races of 2011, Martin Truex Jr. and the “NAPA Know How” team rank 13th in the championship standings. It’s an improvement of seven positions from where the team stood last year at this time. The Michael Waltrip Racing team continues working to close the gap between how well it starts and finishes races. This weekend’s stop at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway may be the track where the No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota visits victory lane.

TRUEX QUOTES

Martin Truex Jr. on the NAPA Team heading into Martinsville: “We’re scratching our heads a little bit trying to figure out what we are missing. The last two weeks we have started off extremely strong and then faded in the second half of the race. What we faced at Bristol is very similar to what we experienced at Fontana. I was able to run fast by moving the line up and finding clean track. Once the clean track is up against the wall and there isn’t a clean surface left, that’s when we seem to struggle. We experienced this issue last year as well. It’s just magnified now with how strong we come out of the box. I expect we’ll get another chance to figure this issue out in Martinsville because it’s concrete like Bristol. We’ll continue to work hard to come up with a solution. It’s something that’s hard to test for so it’s up to us to find the right adjustment during the race that will get grip in the car when the track is rubbered up and slick. Once we figure it out, and I hope it’s at Martinsville, the NAPA team is going to be in really, really good shape.”

-source: mwr

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