MEXICO CITY — Ryan Truex is finally getting in the game.
Truex, who has been called to be a substitute driver for Denny Hamlin since the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, will climb behind the wheel of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota this weekend at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Truex has been on standby throughout the latter stages of Hamlin’s fiancée Jordan’s pregnancy, but Hamlin had made every race.
However, on Wednesday night (June 11), the call was made for Hamlin to stay home and his son was born on Thursday.
As a result, Truex will make his first NASCAR Cup Series start since 2014.
“It’s been a crazy few weeks – especially since Charlotte, I’ve been on standby. I’m glad it is at a track where I can practice and have time and know what to do to,” Truex said during media availability on Friday. “I found out on Wednesday night, so it has been kind of chaotic getting here and putting all of that together, but I’m just grateful for the experience and grateful to be here.
“Really just want to enjoy it. I don’t really have any set goals or expectations – I just want to enjoy the weekend. I’m driving a Cup car for Joe Gibbs at an international race – this is not something I ever dreamed of doing, just want to take it all in and have a good time.”
Truex, who does the majority of the team’s simulator testing, has been at the track with the No. 11 team the past four weekends.
“I’ve been at the track – like I said – every weekend since Charlotte, and Charlotte, Nashville, Michigan was more precautionary than anything,” Truex said. “Michigan was when it started to get close – I felt like there was a pretty good chance I was going to be in the car at some point, but yeah, their due date was during the Michigan race and that week leading into Mexico – I don’t have kids. I don’t know how any of it works. I don’t what happens, when it is supposed to happen, so I’m just kind of hanging on waiting for the call yes or no.
“Every time (Chris) Gayle (crew chief) would text me, my heart would stop and be like is it a yes or no, and every time it was a maybe. So, that definitely fuels the anxiety a little bit when you don’t know what is going on and what is going to happen. I’ve been prepping every week. Preparing like I’m going to be in the car, and yeah, found out on Wednesday night and flew out on Thursday. So, it was a quick turnaround, but everyone made it happen and we made it here.”
Truex has bad memories of his previous Cup Series experience.
“My last time in Cup was not a fun experience. It didn’t go well for me. I didn’t enjoy it. That was probably not the right move for me, career-wise, and I’ve kind of been fighting back since then,” said the younger brother of 2016 series champion Martin Truex Jr. “I enjoy everything I do at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). I’ve been able to race part time the last couple of years, and do all of this stuff away from the track. It has been nice. It has been fun to race part-time and have some Saturdays at home, but it is also fun to be at the track, so I feel like I’ve had a good balance the last few years and the Cup cars then are so different than what they are now.
“I have some experience now with the gen 7 car with some testing and things and doing the sim stuff every single week – I feel like I’ve run a million laps here already the past month. I definitely feel like I’m ready. Like I said, it is good that we have full practice, and I have three sets of tires, and I can work through that, work on pit road, work on my positioning around other cars and race trim. Everyone is kind of on equal footing on that regard, yeah, it should go well, I hope it goes well.”
Truex said the team had to do a little work on the car to switch it over from Hamlin to Truex.
“I mean it is close. It is a little bit of a mismatch because the cars came straight from Michigan and we weren’t sure if this was going to happen,” he explained. “When the car got here, it was set up for Denny (Hamlin), so they are making adjustments after tech.
“Honestly, I fit pretty well – the pedals are a little far away, so they are going to have to move those. If it was an oval, I could have made deal with how the pedals were, but for a road course, you are going to be braking a lot and throttle modulation, so we need to move those, but for the most part, for all of the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) guys, I feel like I fit close.
“Obviously, if it is a 600-mile race, you want to be perfect, because any little pinch point or tight point is going to drive you crazy, but for the most part we should be able to get it close.”
