Martin Truex Jr. confirmed Wednesday that he will seek to make next year’s Daytona 500 and have former crew chief Cole Pearn atop the pit box.
Truex said that his car number will be either No. 78 or No. 56.
He won the 2017 Cup championship with the No. 78.
He has used the No. 56 throughout his career and calls that “my number.”
This season marks Truex’s 19th full-time season in Cup.
The 44-year-old driver has 34 series victories but has never won the Daytona 500.
He finished second to Denny Hamlin in 2016 by .010 seconds — the closest finish in Daytona 500 history.
A disappointed Richard Childress, who has raced in NASCAR as a team owner for 55 years, indicated that NASCAR’s ruling and its appeals decisions that revoked Austin Dillon’s playoff spot will have a huge impact on NASCAR racing and he also considers himself having received the biggest fine in NASCAR history in the money lost in not making the playoffs.
“Their ruling has changed NASCAR racing on the final lap forever,” Childress said Saturday prior to Cup practice at Darlington Raceway, later adding, “It’s over a million dollars to us.
The largest fine ever in NASCAR. I’m just disappointed, disappointed, disappointed.
That’s all I can say.”