Martin Truex Jr.: 2025 Daytona 500 Start Won't Be with 23XI Racing
Martin Truex Jr. has continued to state that he plans to run the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 despite deciding to walk away from his full-time NASCAR Cup Series driving career at the conclusion of the 2024 season. In a media availability ahead of Friday's NASCAR Cup Series Awards Ceremony, the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion reaffirmed his plan to compete in the season-opening Daytona 500, a race he has still yet to win, as well as some NASCAR Xfinity Series races.
"Racing-wise, I mean, I'm going to do the Daytona 500 and looking forward to running some [NASCAR] Xfinity Series cars a bit here and there, just to have fun and see how it goes," Truex explained. "I really enjoy that style of car, you know, low downforce, and just the older cars that we raced. So, I look forward to doing a little bit of that again, but other than that not sure. I have a lot of hobbies, and I need to catch up on those. I'm excited about that."
However, Truex also added some uncertainty and intrigue around his future entry in the 2025 Daytona 500.
In June, Denny Hamlin stated that if Truex wanted to continue competing in select NASCAR Cup Series events, that his 23XI Racing team would have a car ready to go for him, including in the 2025 Daytona 500. So, to this point, it had just been expected that Truex would pilot a 23XI Racing Toyota at Daytona.
However, on Friday, Truex confirmed that his start in the Daytona 500 will not come in a 23XI Racing machine.
.@MartinTruex_Jr confirms that his upcoming Daytona 500 ride will not be with 23XI Racing.
— Peter Stratta (@peterstratta) November 22, 2024
“I was told JGR’s doing it somehow, so we’ll see…”#NASCAR pic.twitter.com/KGlsbufPu9
"No, it's not," Truex said when asked if his Daytona 500 start will still be with 23XI Racing. "I'm not sure what they're doing, honestly. Kind of up in the air. I just told Gibbs, JGR is doing it somehow, so, we'll see."
As Joe Gibbs Racing is fully booked with four full-time Chartered entries (No. 11 Denny Hamlin, No. 19 Chase Briscoe, No. 20 Christopher Bell, and No. 54 Ty Gibbs) for the 2025 season, the team is not permitted to field a fifth entry per the NASCAR Cup Series rule book, so if Truex is to enter the Daytona 500 in a deal brokered by Joe Gibbs Racing, it will have to come through another team.
LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, which fields two full-time entries (John Hunter Nemechek's No. 42, and Erik Jones' No. 43) and a part-time entry (Jimmie Johnson's No. 84), would be a current Toyota NASCAR Cup Series organization that could fill the need for Truex at Daytona. However, if a chance to run for LMC isn't feasible, a new Toyota team would likely need to field a one-off race at Daytona, or Toyota would have to potentially think about loaning Truex to another manufacturer for the Great American Race.
This will be a storyline to certainly keep an eye on.
As far as what tracks fans can expect to see Truex compete at in 2025 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the driver says he doesn't have any of those plans figured out just yet. In fact, he says he hasn't had a chance to really delve into looking at the Xfinity Series schedule just yet.
"No specific tracks, yet. I don't even know where they're going or not going. So, I'll go look at the schedule," Truex said.
Truex, who won the pole in his final two NASCAR Cup Series starts of the 2024 season at Martinsville and Phoenix, is a 34-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner, and he has 147 top-five finishes, and 291 top-10s in 693 career starts. In addition to his 2017 NASCAR Cup Series championship, Truex captured back-to-back NASCAR Xfinity Series championships in 2004 and 2005 prior to moving to the NASCAR Cup Series full-time in 2006.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.