It has been eight years since Martin Truex Jr. tamed the Charlotte Motor Speedway to win the 2016 Coca-Cola 600. A 36-year-old with only three Cup Series wins in his bag at the time, he still had a lot to prove in the world of stock car racing. By fate or not, his upward journey in the premier tier began with that dominant win on the 1.5-mile historic intermediate track.
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Truex Jr. was a driver for Furniture Row Racing in 2016. He had just gone 33 races without seeing the victory lane when the big event in Charlotte popped up on the calendar. He would fire the engine on his #78 Chevy from the start line and go on to lead 392 of the 400 lap race to end up as the winner. The driver broke the 1967 record that Jim Paschal set by leading 335 laps in the Coca-Cola 600.
The 588 miles that he nosed in front is by far one of the most dominant performances in Cup Series history. “It’s just kind of sinking in now that we won the 600,” he quipped in the victory lane. “It’s a big day. We’ve got the troops on the cars. It’s a special weekend. Just a lot of emotion right now. It’s a weekend you dream about.” Truex reached the Round of 12 that year and won the championship a year later in 2017.
He said of the race in a recent press conference, “Certainly that 2016 Coke 600 was a special day. We started on the pole and led almost every lap, and the only laps we didn’t lead were when we were pitting. Essentially led every lap we were on the track racing. To do that in a 600-mile race, the longest of the year, to do that was as close to perfection as it gets.”
Can Truex Jr. win the 2024 Coca-Cola 600 and repeat history?
According to the SportsLine consensus, Truex Jr. has odds of +1000 to win on Sunday. Apart from the 2016 race, he has conquered the Charlotte Motor Speedway on two other occasions and knows his way around it. His average finish rate on the track is 13.7. Meanwhile, he has come painfully close to the victory lane a few times in 2024 and missed out on it in the final seconds due to minor errors.
The situation is oddly similar to what was before the 2016 race. Hopefully, he will be able to pilot the #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE to the Coca-Cola 600 victory lane. It could potentially be his final chance to do so with retirement on the horizon.
