Martin Truex Jr.’s full-time NASCAR career is officially over.
With a 17th-place finish at Phoenix on Sunday, the 2017 champion and future Hall of Famer closed the book on a career that spanned 19 full-time seasons and 693 Cup Series starts.
Truex started on the pole thanks to a strong qualifying effort on Saturday, and led nine laps early in the going before being passed for the race lead by eventual race winner and champion Joey Logano.
“Lately, we qualified good but as the track gets more rubber laid down, the more we struggle,” Truex Jr. said after the race. “I wish we could’ve put some tires on at the end and had a shot to go forward. It wasn’t much fun at the end running on old tires.”
