I read Martin Truex Jr.’s words before I heard them.
It was 287 words of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion explaining his mindset regarding “big decisions,” which Truex admitted he’s “bad at making” up his mind on.
And it’s not a simple decision: will the 43-year-old driver return for one more go-around of the Cup circuit?
Why not? He’s won three races in 2023 so far after a winless 2022, and he’s leading the point standings.
Before I watched the video of Truex, his words read like they came from a man who knew what his real answer is, even if he isn’t ready to say it out loud.
However, the video showed someone who was maybe truly at conflict.
As he rubbed his face multiple times, either out of frustration with the decision or after a long day in his racecar, Truex provided a refreshingly honest insight into his mindset.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Truex began. “You know, I was talking out there to Claire (B. Lang), and I was like, ‘This sport isn’t exactly what it appears to be sometimes. It takes a big commitment.’
“My team is amazing. They deserve the very best driver, the guy that wants it more than anyone else, and I’ve been that guy. I want to make sure that if I come back, I’m willing to do that. It takes a lot. It’s not just show up at the track, drive the car, go home. It takes a lot. It takes a lot of commitment. It’s a lot of travel. A lot of time missing things with family and friends and all those things that I’ve done for 25 years. Do I want to keep doing it and am I willing to sacrifice all those things again for my team?
“So that’s just what I’m thinking about. I don’t know that running good and winning makes a difference. It would be pretty awesome to win the championship and walk off into the sunset.
“I just don’t really know. I don’t really know. I’m bad at making big decisions. I told somebody out there, I was like, I’ve been looking at salt water boats for five, six years. Love to fish, spend a lot of time on the water, and I haven’t pulled the trigger on a boat because I just can’t make up my mind on what I want. I’m just bad at big decisions.
“I finally am about to buy one maybe this week. I wish I had more time to figure out what I want to do next year, but I don’t, so I’ll know soon and you’ll know soon.”
That’s 287 words where Truex seems to be closing the door more than leaving it open and speaking in the past tense about his current job more than the present, or even future, tense.
We’re already beyond the point last season, during the Nashville Superspeedway race weekend, when Truex announced he would be back in 2023.
And as much as Truex would likely love the combo of winning a championship and announcing his retirement in the same breath, that’s not realistic.
As Truex said, while he wishes he had more time to make up his mind, “I don’t, so I’ll know soon and you’ll know soon.”
For me, the most important part of Truex’s answer were the 126 words devoted to how taxing the NASCAR Cup schedule is.
“Big commitment.”
“It takes a lot.”
“Sacrifice.”
“All those things that I’ve done for 25 years.”
Truex first competed in the Cup Series in 2004 with two starts, but his first full-time season wasn’t until 2006.
For every year of that full-time tenure, there have been 36 points races and two exhibition races on the schedule.
Up until last year, the regular-season schedule featured at least two off weeks. Now there’s only one.
That’s a slog. A grind.
However you want to describe it, that kind of year-in, year-out schedule will eventually take something out of you.
That’s compared to the 1992 season, the last season with just 29 points races. After that, as the sport exploded in popularity and profits, NASCAR slowly added more tracks and more races.
“Oh, I vote for less every day of the week,” Truex said recently, according to The Athletic. “It would be nice to have a few weekends off throughout the summer.”
Truex isn’t the only one who lamented the schedule length.
“It’s a lot,” Denny Hamlin told The Athletic. “But I don’t ever see it going backwards just simply because of the revenue.”
Or, as Gordon Gekko said in 1987:
Then there was seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in 2021, a year removed from retiring from his full-time Cup career and enjoying the much shorter schedules provided by IndyCar and sports cars.
“I’ve always firmly felt that there’s just too much racing in NASCAR,” Johnson said. “That’s my opinion, and I’ve had that conversation with executives at NASCAR. Reducing the schedule down to 25-28 races, I think, would be the ideal way to go about it.”
But really, the most striking thing about what Truex said Monday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is how it contrasted with what much younger competitors said when asked the same question that Truex and Hamlin were.
Christopher Bell, age 28: “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be there if there’s 50 (races), I’ll be there if there’s 20.”
Ryan Preece, 32: “I’m for whatever keeps me at the racetrack. Thirty-eight races is fine with me, I don’t have a problem with it. My job is to race a racecar, so if it requires 40-45 races, that’s my job.
Tyler Reddick, 27: “I’m the crazy one, I’d like to see more races. I get bored during the week; I’d rather race more and prep less. We race more, we wouldn’t be able to prep as much.”
The only other respondent who was team “less is more” was William Byron, but like Hamlin, he said “I don’t think that will change anytime soon, so I’m not too worried about it.”
Those are drivers in their late 20s and early 30s.
How will their tune change if they’re still competing when they’re in their early 40s?
What would Truex’s tune have been Monday if he knew there were three or four off weekends awaiting him in 2024?
Years removed from its peak, NASCAR wants as much money as possible, especially when it comes to that sweet, sweet TV revenue.
But what if its desire for profits winds up pushing out its money-making stars sooner than either party would naturally want?
2023 is Daniel McFadin’s 10th year covering NASCAR, with six years spent at NBC Sports. This is his third year writing columns for Frontstretch. His columns won third place in the National Motorsports Press Association awards for 2021. His work can be found at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and SpeedSport.com.
The podcast version of “Dropping the Hammer” is presented by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.