Martin Truex Jr. learned long ago to roll with change. He is a race-car driver and knows a slight breeze in the wrong direction can spin him out of control in a split second.
“It’s always something,” he said.
Truex will climb into a new-look, new-build No. 78 car for NASCAR’s season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday. And he already is playing catch-up, before the race starts.
But the pilot of the Denver-based Furniture Row Racing team won’t try to dodge the stress.
“You’re not like, ‘The season’s starting, we’re going to feel things out.’ There’s no lackadaisical feeling at the beginning,” Truex told The Denver Post last week.
“Daytona 500 is here,” he said. “It’s the biggest race of the year. You immediately start in the pressure cooker. You’re putting all that pressure on yourself.”
Truex’s performance last season shocked the stock-car circuit by bolting into the Sprint Cup final four. FRR, the only team based outside of North Carolina, became the first single-car team to reach the playoffs. Truex finished fourth, FRR’s highest finish in 11 seasons.
But between the season-ending race at Homestead in South Florida and a return to the state for the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl of stock-car racing, his 78 has been revamped.
FRR switched its manufacturer to Toyota from Chevrolet. It changed its technical alliance to Joe Gibbs Racing from Richard Childress Racing. And it gained two new sponsors, giving them a new paint job for 11 races this season.
All those changes probably will cause some drag on the 78 to begin the season. FRR’s late-season success last fall left Truex less time to test his new setup.
“It’s like drinking from a fire hose most days,” said Cole Pearn, FRR’s crew chief. “It’s not often you throw out most of what you were doing.”
FRR believes the risk of scuttling a Chase-worthy car for a redone ride is worth the price, even if the results aren’t immediate. Kyle Busch won NASCAR’s Sprint Cup championship last season in a Toyota engine and chassis setup for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Truex raced into NASCAR’s elite last year with seven top-10 finishes early on. But if Truex’s new 78 setup slows him off the line to start the 2016 season, hope won’t be lost. Busch won his title last year after missing the first 11 races of the season with a broken leg and foot.
“You have to have mistake-free racing, at the end of the day. That’s what keeps you at the edge of your seat,” said Pearn, in his second season as 78’s crew chief. “As long as the stars align and we do our part, we should be back there.”
Daytona, though, didn’t start well for Truex. He got docked a week ago during time-trial qualifications because a roof flap didn’t meet specifications. Then on Thursday he crashed on the final lap of qualifications when Jimmie Johnson’s car spun and pinned the 78 against the wall. Truex was forced into his backup car. He will start 28th in the 44-car field Sunday.
But he turned in the second- fastest practice speed Friday, running 198.64 mph — tied with Busch and a split second behind Denny Hamlin.
“How far we’ve come as a team, with Cole and I and our engineering group, I feel like they can figure out anything,” Truex said.
“Yeah, we have new cars and new sponsors and a new manufacturer and all this stuff. But the team remains the same. And that’s the difference-maker for us. You just have to get out there and get it done.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or @nickgroke
