Former Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. officially retiring after 2024 season

Martin Truex Jr. plans to retire from Cup racing after the 2024 season, capping a career that includes the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series championship and currently 34 Cup wins.

Truex announced the decision to retire from full-time Cup racing Friday at Iowa Speedway while leaving the door open to race select events in NASCAR’s national series. He wouldn’t rule out another Daytona 500 start, as the one main thing still left for him to achieve on his racing resume is winning the sport’s biggest race.

Truex will continue to serve as an ambassador for Joe Gibbs Racing and mentioned he could run Xfinity races for the team.

But his attempts to win a championship will end this year.

“It just felt like the right time for me, honestly,” Truex said. “I thought about it a lot the past few seasons and just waited for that feeling in my mind to be positive, that OK, I’m good, I want to do something else. Something just felt different this year for me.

“I felt like it was time to slow down and do something else. It’s been a great ride, though, obviously.”

Truex, who turns 44 later this month, has competed full time in Cup since 2006 with 32 of his victories coming since 2015. He is winless so far in 2024 but sits fifth in the overall Cup standings in what now will be the final season of a career that should land him in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

The JGR driver has been on a series of one-year deals the past few years and admittedly struggles with the decision each year. JGR wanted an answer now as there are several drivers without contracts for 2025, and JGR didn’t want to lose a chance to land a driver while waiting on a Truex decision.

Truex said the performance this year didn’t impact his decision.

“We’ve had some disappointments this year for sure, but it’s not enough to make you stop doing what you want to do,” Truex said. “Totally not related to performance in any way, shape or form.”

Truex said he made the decision in the last few weeks and that while nervous, he couldn’t describe his emotions.

“I’m not really that emotional,” Truex said. “It has not really sunk in yet, honestly. … I’m looking forward to getting into the car.”

Current Stewart-Haas Racing driver Chase Briscoe, who became available when SHR announced two weeks ago that it would shut down at the end of the season, is the top candidate to replace Truex. He has one career win in 124 Cup starts and sits 17th in the current Cup standings. He won nine Xfinity Series races in a breakout season in 2020.

Truex won back-to-back Xfinity Series titles in 2004-05 for Chance 2 Motorsports (the precursor to JR Motorsports) and went to Cup to drive for Dale Earnhardt Inc., which eventually merged with Chip Ganassi Racing. He had appeared to find a home at Michael Waltrip Racing, but the 2013 race manipulation scandal at Richmond (which Truex was unaware of and had no direct part in) resulted in the team losing sponsorship for Truex.

That was a pivotal moment, as Truex joined Furniture Row Racing in 2014 and won a Cup title for the organization in 2017. The team shut down after 2018, and Truex has driven for JGR for the last six years.

Truex has 146 top-5 finishes in 673 career Cup starts.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.