Excuse Martin Truex Jr. for being a bit biased, but he holds Kansas Speedway in high regard.
When it’s a track he’s earned his most top fives at (eight) and collected two victories, it’s not a surprise to hear Truex say nice things about the 1.5-mile track.
“It’s really come into being an awesome race track,” Truex said in a media release. “It’s gotten back to where you can run all over. The top lane against the wall comes in – the bottom is still good. You name it and you can run it.”
Coming off two wins in the last three Cup races (Richmond and Dover), Truex will look to claim his first win at Kansas since he swept both races during his 2017 championship campaign.
But the Joe Gibbs Racing driver will be doing it under different circumstances thanks to the new rules package this year.
“It’s going to be different going to Kansas this time with the 550-horsepower package and the draft coming into play and all that goes along with that,” Truex said. “I think the cool part about going there is that it’s a great race track and it’s weathered over the years since that repave (in 2012). … I think that will play into making the package we’re taking there even better than it’s been at some other places. I think it has the potential to be one of the coolest races of the year honestly. It’s going to be fun.”
Truex’s comments come after Kyle Busch and team owner Bob Leavine were openly critical of the rules package following Monday’s Dover race, while Truex offered tamer criticism about the difficulty of passing on the 1-mile track.
But even with the new rules package, Truex has earned two wins and he was about a lap from a third earlier this at the 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway when he finished second to Brad Keselowski.
Truex said the racing Saturday night “should be similar” to what was seen at Texas Motor Speedway at the end of March due to both tracks hosting the 550-horsepower package with aero ducts.
“I thought Texas we had a better race than we’ve had there the last couple years,” Truex said. “At a place where it’s tough to run two-wide and things like that, I thought we had some good racing. Kansas is going to be a hell of a show I feel like. We’ll wait and see, but it should be fun.”
