The 2024 season may have been Martin Truex Jr.’s last as full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, but the expectation was that we would see him race sporadically throughout 2025.
Truex had a deal in place by mid-summer to run the 2025 Daytona 500 with 23XI Racing (this start was later run with TRICON Garage), and he expressed interest ahead of his last year’s finale at Phoenix Raceway in running a partial NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule with Joe Gibbs Racing for 2025.
“I’ve got to talk to Coach [Joe Gibbs] about the Xfinity car,” Truex said. “We will see what the options are there. I would like to run a few of those next year for sure. I haven’t really looked into [the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series] at all — not sure about that — but I’m open to doing some things, so hopefully can have some fun next year and that will include some racing. So we will see how that all plays out.”
Truex was also asked in the same press conference if Dale Earnhardt Jr. had reached out to him about running some races in the CARS Tour (which Earnhardt co-owns). Truex said no, but he did leave the door open for a potential appearance.
“It would be fun to race with [Dale] again, so if he can’t do any Xfinity races, I might have to jump over there and do that,” Truex said.
But more than three months have passed since Truex’s start with TRICON in the Daytona 500, and we’ve yet to hear any further plans. No Cup, no Xfinity, no CARS. Nothing.
It’s also been a quiet year for younger brother Ryan Truex. Ryan ran 10 races with JGR’s Xfinity program last year, winning at Daytona International Speedway and Dover Motor Speedway, but he hasn’t made a Xfinity start with JGR for 2025. His only start, period, was with Sam Hunt Racing at Daytona, where he finished 17th.
That said, Ryan is still with JGR and under the Toyota umbrella. He was at Nashville Superspeedway last weekend as the standby driver for Denny Hamlin, who was expecting his third child with fiancée Jordan Fish. Hamlin ultimately raced in Music City, so the younger Truex did not get a chance behind the wheel.
Ryan is still attempting to race, even if the opportunities haven’t been abundant this season. For Martin, that question remains unanswered.
In looking at JGR’s No. 19 All-Star Xfinity car, 25 of the 33 races this season have been filled. Justin Bonsignore and Aric Almirola have nine each, Riley Herbst has four, while Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Jack Perkins have run or are scheduled to run one each. That leaves eight races where Truex could get in on the action if a deal happens to materialize.
But one also has to wonder if Truex has had a change of heart since his comments in November. It was reported earlier this week that his Mooresville, N.C., mansion along Lake Norman (a property he bought in 2006) was put on sale for $7.5 million, so it appears that North Carolina won’t play as large of a role in the next chapter of his life.
A driver doesn’t have to reside in NASCAR country to compete part time, but the impending sale paints a picture that Truex — a noted outdoorsman with a reputation of being quiet and reserved away from the track — might be moving on.
Of course, the only person that knows Truex’s plan for 2025 is Truex himself. And whether or not we see him back in a car down the road will be his story to tell.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf