"I'm not sure what they're doing" - Martin Truex Jr. confirms Daytona 500 plans but rules out 23XI Racing

Martin Truex Jr. recently confirmed his plans to run the 2025 Daytona 500, albeit his ride is still in question. The 44-year-old announced his full-time departure from the NASCAR series this season. However, rumors emerged that Denny Hamlin offered him a Daytona 500 ride for next season.

After a two-decade-long storied career, the 2017 Cup Series champion failed to make his mark on the prestigious Daytona 500 race. Following his announcement, the former Joe Gibbs Racing driver publically expressed his desire to run in the Great American race.

In a recent conversation at the NASCAR Awards media interaction, Truex Jr. spoke about the possibilities of competing at the inaugural Cup race at Daytona International Speedway and in a few Xfinity Series races. He said:

"I'm going to do Daytona 500 and then you know, looking forward to running some Xfinity cars a bit here and there. Just to have fun and see how it goes. I really enjoy that style of car, you know, low down force and just the older cars that we raced. So I'm looking forward to doing a little bit of that again and other than that, not sure. But I've got a lot of hobbies and I need to catch up on those and I'm excited about that."

When asked about his deal of securing a ride with Michael Jordan and Hamlin-owned 23XI Racing, Truex Jr. shared an ambiguous response, directing it towards the Toyota team's lawsuit battle.

"No, it's not. I'm not sure what they're doing. Honestly, up in the air. I just told Gibbs. JGR's doing it somehow. So we'll see."

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"We're bringing him out of the mountains": Martin Truex Jr. hopeful of reuniting with his former crew chief

Before joining Joe Gibbs Racing in 2019, Martin Truex Jr. partnered with Cole Pearn and competed for Furniture Row Racing with whom he bagged his maiden Cup Series title. However, Pearn retired in 2019 and started working as a consultant for JGR.

In a conversation with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, the 34-times Cup Series race winner shared his optimism of reuniting with his championship-winning crew chief in the hope of winning the iconic Daytona 500 race. He said:

"All I know is I'm racing. And, uh, the other cool news about that is Cole Pearn's gonna be my crew chief... We're bringing, we're, we're bringing him out of the mountains." [0:10]

Truex Jr. then added:

"He's gonna do it. It's gonna be awesome"

Truex Jr. ended this year at P10 in the final driver's standings. Although he couldn't drive through the victory lane this year, he accumulated five top-fives and 11 top-10 finishes.