Nextel Wake-Up Call Guest: Martin Truex, Jr.
GM Racing Communications, Press Release

MARTIN TRUEX JR., NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER MONTE CARLO SS WAS TODAY'S NASCAR NEXTEL CUP WAKE-UP CALL GUEST. HE TALKED WITH MEDIA ABOUT THE PIT CREW CHALLENGE, THE ALL-STAR CHALLENGE, AND HIS SEASON TO DATE

Q&A'S WITH TRUEX:

DO YOU THINK YOUR TEAM HAS A SHOT AT THE PIT CREW CHALLENGE THIS YEAR? YOUR TEAM WON LAST YEAR.

"I think so. We've got a few guys from last year that won the championship. We've got a few new guys involved and I think they're better than they were last year. So I'm excited; I'm signed up to go there and cheer them on for once. It's kind of different, you know. You're able to stand outside the car for once and watch them do their pit stops and watch them work and see how they get into it. It'll be a lot of fun to go there and do that. It's a huge event for them; they really get pumped up for it. It's going to be exciting to be part of."

YOU'RE ALSO PART OF THE NEXTEL FAN VOTE FOR THE ALL-STAR CHALLENGE. ARE YOU LOBBYING FOR VOTES?

"Well, not quite as much as Kenny Wallace. It's going to be tough to beat Kenny. He's got his 'Vote for Kenny' campaign going on SPEED. That's a little tough to compete against but we'll see what we can do. The fans have been awesome. We got in two years ago by the fan vote and it was really cool, a really neat deal. We'll just have to see how many fans we've got out there; I know there's a lot and I hope they're supporting us 100%."

HAS THE LIST OF DRIVERS OR TEAMS THAT YOU'VE WORKED WITH AT PLATE TRACKS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?

"Running in the Cup Series it's definitely changed. The more you run with those guys the more comfortable they get around you. Guys like Tony (Stewart) and Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson - people like that will start working with you a little more. That kind of takes time in the Cup Series but in the Busch Series it's kind of a constant revolving door of different drivers coming in and out and you just kind of work with whoever you can get together with and wherever your car works well with."

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS WEEKEND?

"I feel really good. I feel like we'll have a really good shot at winning. We had a really strong car in the 500 back at Daytona. We got caught up in one of those late wrecks but we had a car that we led some laps with and had a shot of winning with. We always typically run well here. We've had a little bit of trouble being around at the end of these things, getting caught up in wrecks and things and engines blowing up. But last fall we finished fifth and we feel good about it. Going for four in a row in the Busch race, looking forward to having some fun in that race and then on Sunday we'll get after it and try to get our first win in the Cup Series."

YOU ARE CLOSE FRIENDS WITH DALE EARNHARDT, JR. DO YOU HAVE A SENSE OF WHERE HIS CONTRACT DEAL STANDS?

"Honestly, I don't have a clue. I don't really pay much attention to it. Junior is a friend, he's a teammate and we just go out there and race. Whatever happens out there is just going to happen."

YOU'RE OFF TO A GOOD START THIS YEAR. HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SEASON?

"We've got a really strong team and we've got good race cars each week. I feel good about our performance, the way it's been on the race track. We've had some things happen to us out of our control. We started out at Daytona with a wreck and in California we lost an engine about five laps into the race. So it was a tough start to the year but we've had good cars and we've run well each week. I feel good about my team and what (crew chief) Bono (Manion) and all the guys are doing on the Bass Pro Shops team, working hard, bringing good cars to the race track. Good pit stops, making good decisions throughout the race.

"We've been doing all the right things but we just need to get some of the finishes. Last week we had a top-10 car all day long and got caught on that last caution with about 20 laps to go. Just things like that have kept kind of knocking us down but we feel like we're doing a good job and we feel like we can run up front each week."

WHAT HAPPENED IN BUSCH PRACTICE YESTERDAY WITH THE DEBRIS?

"I don't know. I was the second car in the draft and we were just going along and I heard something bang around up under the car. I was following Mike Wallace and I don't know if it came off his car or if it was just some debris on the race track. It cut our tire down and our tire ended up coming off and going up into Junior's nose and tore both of our cars up. It was unfortunate but the guys got it fixed up real quick. Going back out there the car was still real good."

WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO ROLLING BACK THE RESTRICTOR PLATES IN THE BUSCH SERIES?

"I don't know. It's hard to tell because you only get out there in a 10- to 15-car pack. Once you get 40 out there the whole pack is going to go a lot faster. I'm sure there's a number they look at there depending on how many cars they have on the race track and what kind of speeds they think they should be running. Maybe we were up there or close to it but when you are out there with 10 or 15 cars it just feels slow anyways. It's kind of hard to tell.
"The plate was a huge change. It was probably too much of a change. We went out there with the next plate and it's just going to make the pack a whole lot tighter than it was. I was able to drive up through the pack pretty easy and take the lead. Once I got the lead I just kind of hit a wall and they drove back by me. So it's going to tighten the pack up a whole bunch more, I think."


This Press Release and any images that are used,
are used with permission. Do not duplicate or
redistribute in any form without permission or credit.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

By David Caraviello
NASCAR.COM
June 16, 2007


BROOKLYN, Mich. -- As recently as three weeks ago, he was a frustrated and unheralded driver who was completely overshadowed even on his own team. Now he's a winner on NASCAR's premier circuit, and on the brink of becoming the public face of Dale Earnhardt Inc.

How things have changed in such a short time for Martin Truex Jr. Weeks of failures and unfulfilled promise came to an end when he dominated the rain-delayed event at Dover International Speedway on June 4. A third-place finish last Sunday at Pocono vaulted him into contention for a Chase berth. And when Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced his intention to leave the organization his late father founded, this often overlooked, sometimes anonymous 26-year-old moved to the brink of becoming the public face of one of the most popular teams in NASCAR.

"I think a leader is someone who just does it naturally, who is not asked to be the leader. That's what Martin has done," said Richie Gilmore, vice president for motorsports at DEI. "No one has come right out and said, 'Junior is leaving, you've got to be our leader.' He's done it naturally. He's been in the shop, he's been around the cars, he's at the racetrack. He's just done it naturally. To step up to another level and be that leader, I think he's a guy who can do that for us."

DEI still has to sign another driver for next season, and may ink someone like Kyle Busch -- right now, the team's No. 1 target -- with a more impressive resume than Truex. But the performances turned in by the New Jersey native in the weeks since Earnhardt's initial announcement have allayed some concerns about the organization's ability to compete without its current top driver. Truex has maintained all along that the team can not only survive, but thrive without Earnhardt. A few weeks ago, comments like those were dismissed as remarks made by a young and relatively unproven driver.

Not any more. His results in the past two races have backed up his words.

"I think it pretty much should hush everybody up," said Truex, who will start eighth in Sunday's event at Michigan International Speedway. "It should squash all that. They're working harder than they ever have to get everything right, to get the right people in place, to make our cars better. There's no reason why 42 other teams can make it out here without Junior, and we can't. I love Junior to death. He's like a brother to me. He's been a great friend. I'm real excited for him with what he's got going on right now. But we can do it."

And Earnhardt is glad to see it. "I think that you know, it hurts ... those guys' pride when the remarks were made about DEI not being able to continue without me as a driver there," he said. "And for them to go out and make a statement like they have over the last couple of weeks, I think it helps them and gives them a lot of confidence and gives the rest of the employees that are not going to the racetrack a lot of confidence."

Winning proved the missing link. Since the final race of last season, when he finished second at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Truex's cars have steadily improved. But at every turn, some sort of misfortune lurked -- getting caught on pit road during a caution at Daytona, blowing an engine at California, suffering damage in an accident somewhere else. Those incidences chipped away at his confidence, and made the breakthrough seem further away than it really was.

"For a while there, it seemed like things would never go right for us, and I always just wondered why, what did we do to deserve this? You get down when things are going bad, and they weren't necessarily going bad, but we'd pit and the caution would come out. Just stupid things would happen, and you'd get so aggravated and so mad that you start to question everything," Truex said.

"Luckily, these guys [on the No. 1 crew] have always done a good job of keeping me focused and keeping me pumped up and keeping me looking at the positives -- how well we ran, the lap times as compared to everybody else on the racetrack, and things like that. They've done a good job of keeping me focused on the things I need to focus on."

And then came Dover, and performance near his home state where Truex led 216 of 400 laps to record his first Nextel Cup victory. Earnhardt has seen it before -- a young driver finds that first win, the pressure melts away, confidence grows and results improve across the board.

"I told him when he won that race, 'You're going to run better on average now just because.' When you win that first race, your whole program just steps up a notch, for no apparent reason. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, but you'll just be running better," Earnhardt said.

"It's sort of like the kid who doesn't write on the doorjamb how tall he is over the years. You don't notice yourself getting taller, but you are. That's what I told him he was going to do. I feel really good now that he's doing that, because it takes a lot of pressure and worry off of me as to what everybody's plans were at DEI and what would happen. I think he's going to be able to provide that company the success it needs to garner the sponsorship and bring in the corporate interest it needs to compete."

Truex's run of success shows all signs of continuing at Michigan, where his No. 1 Chevy topped Friday's opening practice session and has been one of the fastest cars all weekend. His team has progressed from wondering if it can win races, to thinking it can win every weekend. Elliott Sadler crossed that threshold himself in 2001, and vividly remembers what it was like.

"It's the difference between looking at someone and saying, 'I think I can do it,' and saying, 'I know I can do it.' I've done it," said Sadler, who has won twice more since. "That's a big relief, and it's especially a big relief for you and the team that you're with. There's a big difference between going, 'We can do this,' to, 'We did this, and we can do it again.' It's just a big momentum boost. It's big for your confidence, and it makes you feel like you belong in this sport. If you can win in this sport, if you can beat 42 other guys on a given Sunday ... you feel like you've done a good job and you deserve to be here."

Truex has made strides off the track as well. Gilmore recalls the April race at Phoenix, where Truex's advice helped DEI driver Paul Menard figure out the quirky 1-mile track. Before last week's race at Pocono, Menard called Truex and asked about the line he needed to take around the triangular layout. That conversation helped Menard, outside the top 35 in owner points, qualify for the race.

It's all part of the maturing process for a driver who may very well be the face of his franchise at this time next year.

"We still know the things we have to get better on, and we still know the challenges we're going to face," Truex said. "But we've got the confidence now to know that we can meet all those challenges, and we can go out there and win the race if we do things right. It's a good feeling."

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Bass Pro re-signs with DEI: Bass Pro Shops will continue as sponsor of the #1 Chevy and driver Martin Truex in 2008. Terms of the contract extension between Bass Pro and Dale Earnhardt Inc. were not disclosed.(Springfield, MO News Leader)(6-26-2007)

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Truex Jr. to showcase Turkey Federation scheme at Daytona: Martin Truex Jr.will be driving the DEI, Bass Pro Shops #1 Chevy, showcasing the National Wild Turkey Federation's logo during the Pepsi 400 at the Daytona International Speedway, July 7. The sponsorship is a donation to the NWTF from John L. Morris and Bass Pro Shops and is part of the Conservation Fund's "Racing for America's Wildlife" program. The program is designed to engage the NASCAR community in upholding America's hunting and fishing heritage.(nwtf.org), see images of the scheme on my #1 Team Schemes page.(6-29-2007)

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

No. 1 team earns first Checkers®/Rally’s® Double Drive-Thru Challenge victory of season
DMF Communications For Checkers®/Rally’s® Double Drive-Thru Challenge, Press Release

Martin Truex’s No. 1 over-the-wall crew tallied its first Checkers®/Rally’s® Double Drive-Thru Challenge win of the season by spending the least amount of time on pit road during Sunday’s road-course event at Watkins Glen International.
The Bass Pro Shops team, out of the Dale Earnhardt Inc. stable, spent 87.729 seconds on pit road during the 90-lap race at the 2.45-mile track.

“This is a different team from last year’s pit crew and they’ve really begun to mesh in the last few weeks,” said Walt Smith, pit crew coordinator for Dale Earnhardt Inc. “When we put the final piece in the puzzle a couple of months ago, the results started to show. The performance they gave on pit road in Watkins Glen was a showcase of what’s been coming over the past weeks.”

“These guys have really started to gel and, fortunately for us, they’re starting to gel at the right time with the Chase coming up. I couldn’t be happier about their performance,” Smith added.

Truex’s over-the-wall crew will be presented with an $11,000 check by Checkers/Rally’s for winning the weekly challenge. An additional $111,150 prize will be presented to the pit crew with the most wins at the completion of the 36-race Nextel Cup schedule.

The No. 1 crew includes: Jeff Kerr (jackman), Ryan Buscaglio (front-tire carrier), Dave Collin (front-tire changer), Mark Kennerly (rear-tire carrier), Coleman Dollarhide (rear-tire changer), Preston Cordell (gasman), Mark Purvis (catch can) and Haskell Lavalette (eighth-man). Cherry and Bob Pressley are the pit crew coaches. The crew chief is Kevin Manion.

Mark Martin’s/Regan Smith’s No. 01 crew leads the season-long Checkers/Rally’s Double Drive-Thru Challenge standings with four wins.

To win, teams are required to finish on the lead lap while spending the least amount of time on pit road. Checkers/Rally’s is in its third season as title sponsor for the Pit Crew Challenge.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

That crew has done a great job all year. Keep going BPS 1 Crew!

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

SCENEDAILY
09:41AM ET THURSDAY AUGUST 16, 2007
BY SCENEDAILY STAFF REPORT

A lot of drivers might feel pressure this time of year, especially those attling for a spot in the Chase For The Nextel Cup. But for Martin Truex Jr., one of the drivers fighting for one of the 12 places in the title-determining Chase, this is a fun time of the season.

Truex sits 11th in the Nextel Cup point standings, 58 points ahead of 12th-palce Kurt Busch and 154 ahead of 13th-place Ryan Newman. And at this point, Truex is the only Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver in the Chase, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. has dropped to 14th in points, 158 behind Truex. Four races remain before the Chase begins Sept. 16 at New Hampshire.

"As everyone knows, we're getting down to crunch time. The guys battling for the last three positions in the Chase really need to be on their toes every week. The pressure is starting to build, but it's also exciting. This is where you'll see which teams can handle being in the spotlight every weekend."

After a slow start to 2007, Truex and his team have proven they belong in the

Chase. He has five top-10 finishes in the last 10 races, including his first career victory, at Dover.

And Truex has something to look forward to as the series heads to Michigan International Speedway for this weekend's 3M Peformance 400. He finished second at the track in June to cap a

three-race stretch where he finished first, third and second. "I have all the confidence in the world in [crew chief Kevin] 'Bono' [Manion] and the guys," Truex said. "We've been bringing good cars to the track every week, and that helps to put your mind at ease. It's one less thing you have to worry about.

"We're bringing one of our most dependable cars this weekend. We ran it at Michigan earlier this year and finished second with it. We also used it at Pocono twice, at Indy, Chicago, Las Vegas and California. She's been a real workhorse."

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Truex Jr. to sign his seat in the DuPont Monster Bridge: #1-Martin Truex Jr. will visit the Dupont Monster Bridge at Dover International Speedway for a brief press event to sign the #1 seat. Truex will sign this seat as part of a Dover tradition, with race winners of the Nextel Cup events at the Speedway being invited to sign their respective seat in the special structure.(DIS PR)(9-21-2007)

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I heard all the RCR/DEI engines had valve spring retainer failures with excessive wear in the retainer area, possibly not correctly hardened?
These retainers were only used in the restrictor plate engines ( they use a lighter valve spring pressure due to the lower rpm NORMALY turned in restrictor engines ) so this doesent apply to previous engine failures and should not effect the rest of the season. Thank Goodness!

__________________
If You Wont Stand Behind OUR TROOPS please feel free to stand in front of them


To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


The JACK CREW!!!