Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Ryan Truex, a part-time driver for Joe Gibbs Racing’s NASCAR Xfinity Series team who is tied for the second-most wins in the series this season despite only making nine starts. This interview has been condensed and edited, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.
1. What is currently the No. 1 thing on your bucket list?
I really want to go snowboarding in the Swiss Alps. That’d be really cool. I love cold-weather trips and I love snowboarding. I love not breaking my legs, hopefully. But in general, it’s traveling and seeing places I haven’t been.
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2. How much media coverage of NASCAR do you consume?
A lot. I eat, sleep and breathe racing. It’s all I care about. Twitter, Instagram, Reddit — I read a lot, so I see a lot of fan opinions and what they think it’s like versus what it’s actually like and what everyone thinks is happening.
I see all the rumors, and it’s pretty entertaining to read comments of people who think they know what’s going on. When you actually know what’s going on and the difference in the perception of how things work from our side versus the other side of the grandstands, it’s a lot different.
So you’ll know something that is going on, and you see speculation about it or somebody saying something that is completely wrong?
Yeah, and they’re so certain. I just want to respond to this guy on Twitter and be like, “You are wrong,” but I can’t. (Laughs.) It’s not my place. I’ve read a lot of stuff, even about myself in the past few weeks, and it’s like, “Some people just don’t have a clue.”
3. Beyond winning, what is the best way to measure success in racing?
Longevity, like how long you’re around, or maybe just respect from your peers. If everyone in the garage respects you, that means you’re doing the right thing and racing the right way. Martin (Truex Jr., his older brother) is highly respected, but he’s also been around forever, so he has both of them.
I don’t know how to pick between those two. Longevity … if you’re around racing full-time year after year, obviously you can get it done and you’re somebody who is necessary to (a team). But respect goes a long way in showing how you are as a person on and off the track, and you race by the code you think is right and people respect it. That’s a pretty cool way to be a race car driver.
4. What is an opinion you have about NASCAR you don’t think is shared by the fans?
Technology isn’t as bad as people see it to be. There’s always going to be pushback on it, because it’s different and it’s new and it’s not the good old NASCAR. It should always be man versus machine, but you’ve got to evolve. Whether that’s hybrid technology or more electronics, whatever it is, that’s something probably the fan base looks at as not so much NASCAR and maybe more F1-style stuff. But you’ve got to keep up with the times and keep doing that.
5. What is the biggest thing fans don’t realize about what you do for a living?
As a part-time guy, I’m at the simulator a lot. That’s my full-time job. I’m there two or three times a week, eight hours a day. I do that for JGR weekly on the Cup side. That’s probably something people don’t know. I’ve talked about it, but I’ve never really gotten into detail about it.
That’s a lot. Doesn’t your brain get fried after all that time in the simulator?
Yeah, it’s a lot. Last year I ended up with like 110 days that I was in there. I ran like 25,000 laps throughout the year. It definitely took some getting used to doing it that much. It feels like your brain is scrambled at the end of the day because you’re just making laps, looking at data, talk about it, make some more laps, look at more data. It’s just driving and looking at squiggly lines.
Is it just mentally taxing, or is there a physical element too?
It’s just mental. When you’re sitting like that for a prolonged state, it can be physical. It’s like a road trip. If you drive for eight hours straight, you feel terrible; your legs hurt, your knees hurt, your back hurts. You’ve got to try and get breaks. And I’ve spent a lot of time at the Toyota gym doing recovery stuff. That was something I struggled with last year, when I started doing this sim stuff — being achy from sitting so much, basically.
6. This next one is the hot topic related to yourself. You recently won at Daytona. Is it even possible to take an Xfinity Series win these days and turn it into more races? Or is it still just all about sponsorship and finding money, meaning one win doesn’t do something specific to push you over the line?
A few years ago if you asked me, I’d say, “If I win, I think I’m good. The rest will figure itself out.” Even last year at Dover when I won, I was like, “All right, finally. I’m on my way. This is what I needed.” And it didn’t happen.
Then I won Dover again this year. I’m like, “All right, I’ve won two out of six (races). Surely, this is going to (land him a ride).” The talks get a little more aggressive with each win. And then with Daytona, I feel like that started to push it over the edge a little bit where it’s like, “All right, this is ridiculous now. What else do I need to do at this point? That was three out of 10 I’ve won.”
At the end of the day, it’s a business and it is about sponsorship and putting it all together. The more I put my name out there, put myself out there, show that I’m a winner and I’m going to get you a lot of TV time and do all that cool stuff off the track, hopefully that’s going to translate into a sponsor.
All I can do is keep trying to win and hope it all works out. I’m pushing on my end as hard as I can and reaching out and trying to find the right partners and put it all together. The wins help. But still, at the end of the day, you’ve got to have the right partners in place.
7. This is a wild-card question. You got engaged last year, about a year ago. What has the wedding planning process been like on your end? How much are you involved in all that?
It hasn’t been great. (Laughs.) I have a really big family. We tried to make a list of people, and it was like 250. We’re like, “All right. Well, this is not gonna work.”
Honestly, we were waiting for the (2025) schedule to come out and waiting to see what my brother was going to do as far as if he was going to race full-time or not. Because obviously he has to be there. So that was the first hurdle, and they took forever to put the schedule out, so we just had to keep waiting.
But now that it’s out, I think mid-summer or something is what we’re going to do — one of the off weekends. That’s about as much as we planned so far. (Earlier this month) was the one-year anniversary of getting engaged, so a year later, we’re finally starting to figure it out.
8. What do you like about the place where you grew up? Mayetta, New Jersey.
We’re close to everything. My dad’s house is in the woods in Mayetta, and then literally you cross the main road and the bay is right there. You go over the bridge, Long Beach Island is right there. The beach is 10 minutes away from his house and the Poconos are two hours, so you can go to the beach or you can go snowboarding, all pretty close. New York City is an hour and a half away, Philly is an hour and a half away. There’s stuff everywhere to do.
Just growing up on the ocean and at the beach was probably my favorite part. That’s what I miss the most living in North Carolina. The lake is cool, but it’s just not the same. So I try to get back there as much as I can.
9. What personality trait are you the most proud of?
(Speaking softly.) My quietness, maybe?
Sorry, what?
My quietness. See, you couldn’t even hear me.
My dad always said you have two ears and one mouth because you should listen twice as much as you talk. I took that to heart, and I think it’s helped me a lot in not saying dumb things and not speaking too soon, or having a mic shoved in my face and going on a rant like I want to sometimes. It’s kept me out of trouble.
10. Which driver would you least like to be stuck with on an elevator?
Martin, because he’d probably be farting a lot. That’s what he would do. He would just ruin it for everyone.
On purpose?
On purpose, yeah. Absolutely. That is a Martin move.
11. What is a run-in you’ve had with a driver that TV or the media missed?
Me and Bubba (Wallace) got into it in 2010 at Lee Speedway in the K&N East series. We took the white flag and it was me and Eddie MacDonald racing for the lead. Bubba had gotten a flat tire earlier, and he had a new right rear tire, so he drove through the field. He got to us and he went to the bottom of three-wide, kind of shoved us out of the way and he won the race.
I ran into him after the checkered flag. Andy Santerre, his car owner, ran up to my window, and my team ran up to him. There was a whole scuffle, but I didn’t see Bubba.
I was in the media center outside of the track after I finished second and was done doing the interview. So I’m coming down and Bubba is on his way up, and he got in my face. He’s like, “What was that all about?” It was just me and him. There was nobody there. Like, there were two fans in the grandstands, and they both looked at each other and pointed and were watching because they thought we were going to throw down. We were two 16-year-olds.
Nothing happened. We just talked. But we were really close to actually (fighting). He was ready to go. He was mad, which I don’t really blame him. I just ran into him after the checkered flag.
But yeah, I don’t know if anybody else other than me, him and maybe his PR guy ever saw that. No cameras were there, I know that. It was 2010, so nobody had their phones out.
12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was with Juan Pablo Montoya. He says: Would you prefer NASCAR runs a 20-race schedule instead of 36 so people can have more of a life?
I mean, 36 is a lot. I think next year it’s what, 28 in a row (for the Cup Series)? That’s crazy. I haven’t made it through the whole Cup schedule; I tried to race full-time once, and only made it halfway. And I was 21, so I didn’t mind it.
The Truck schedule is perfect. You get a couple weeks off here and there. You run a few in a row. Maybe 28 or 26 (races is a good number). It’d be a lot easier for me, because it costs less. So I could find more sponsors. I wouldn’t mind that at all.
And if it was 20, Martin wouldn’t have retired. I think a lot of guys wouldn’t have been retired as early as they were. When you do it for 20 years and you never have off-weekends and you race through the summer, he’s missed a lot of birthdays and weddings and celebrations. You miss a lot and you’re always gone. And they’re not just sitting around during the week; most of them are still working, still trying to get better, still trying to learn.
It would help everybody from a mental standpoint, for sure — not just drivers, but team guys. Even you (media) guys, everybody having some time off to enjoy your life would make this whole grind and process a little more enjoyable.
Do you have a question I can ask the next driver? It’s Michael McDowell.
How did you stay motivated through the tough points in your NASCAR career? What advice would you give to someone with a similar career arc, whether that be in racing or any other profession?
(Top photo of Ryan Truex celebrating his win last month at Daytona: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
