Martin Truex Jr. will stay in the #19 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing for a while longer. On Wednesday, before the first Daytona 500 practice, the team announced the NASCAR Cup Series driver has signed a contract extension. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it will keep him with the team through at least 2022.
“I’m happy to get this news out there so we can focus on this season and the future with Joe Gibbs Racing,” Truex stated. “This is where I wanted to be and to continue building on the success we have had together the past two years. I appreciate Coach (Gibbs), my team, everyone at JGR and all of our partners like Bass Pro Shops, Auto-Owners Insurance, Reser’s Fine Foods, Stanley Black & Decker and Toyota for making this possible and I look forward to continuing those relationships as we move forward.”
Truex joined JGR in 2019 after spending the previous five years and winning a title with ally and now-defunct Furniture Row Racing. Since taking over the #19, he has recorded eight wins, including seven in his first season, and a second-place points finish in 2019. In 2020, his first season with new crew chief James Small, he scored a win at Martinsville, fourteen top fives, and twenty-three top tens as he finished seventh in the standings. Altogether, he has twenty-seven Cup victories.
As he enters his third season as a JGR driver in 2021, he will also run the Xfinity Series race at Atlanta in June, his first start in NASCAR’s second tier since 2010. Truex is a two-time Xfinity champion, winning in 2004 and 2005; he has thirteen career wins in the series.
“Extending Martin’s agreement has been a big priority for us this off season,” Gibbs said. “Martin brings so much to our organization. Obviously he’s talented and shown he can win at any racetrack but his insights also helps to make all our teams better.”
Truex was the second-fastest driver in Wednesday’s Daytona 500 practice behind JGR ally Bubba Wallace. Although he has never won the 500 and wrecked out in his two 500 starts for JGR, he finished runner-up in the 2016 race to now-team-mate Denny Hamlin. Hamlin had received his own contract extension with JGR at the start of the month.
