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NASCAR driver Ryan Truex drove down victory lane in the WaWa 250 Powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway. This win marked Truex's second of the 2024 season.
Truex drives the #20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, competing part-time in the Xfinity Series. Truex has raced in all of NASCAR's major divisions but has only secured three victories, all in the Xfinity Series. His first win came at Dover International Speedway last year, a track where he successfully defended his title with another win this year.
Truex won the WaWa 250 under caution as Parker Kligerman's #48 made contact with AJ Allmendinger and sent him spinning out on the race track. In a post-race interview, Truex shared his feelings on winning at Daytona.
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"Just thanks to these guys man. I don't get to race that often, I don't know what I'm going to do next year, it's all a work in progress but just a great car. We've worked hard on our superspeedway stuff," Truex said [00:28].
"Shout out to Tyler up on the roof, what an amazing spotter. He drove this car, I just turned the steering wheel. So, thanks to him, thanks to everybody at JGR, Toyota, TRD(Toyota Racing Development). I can't believe this, I felt good this week coming in and I knew we had a shot, and I feel like every time I'm here, I just end up making a dumb mistake or get caught up in a wreck so I'm just glad we finished one out," he added.
Truex is currently P28 in the Xfinity Series driver standings. The race at Daytona was his eighth start of the 2024 season. Besides his win at Dover, Truex has also secured 4 top-ten finishes in this year's campaign.
"I run a lot of sim laps" - Ryan Truex shares how he stays competitive as a part-time driver
Drivers competing full-time with a team are witnessed competing in a points race on most weekends, mostly without a break. Ryan Truex, however, has only run 8 races this season and still manages to challenge his competitors on the race track.
In the aforementioned interview, Truex was asked how he maintains this standard of racing with little time on the track. He said:
"I got to give a lot of credit to the sim group at JGR, I run a lot of sim laps during the week. My day-job basically is driving the simulator at TRD so um I learned a lot on that, they've taught me a lot [01:22].
"Being able to look at Cup Guys' data and video and what things they do, I've become a better driver in the past three years with these guys, racing less than I ever have, just because I've learned so much and just have such great people around me," he added.
Truex crossed the line first at the WaWa 250, followed closely by JGR teammate Chandler Smith in second place, with Parker Kligerman rounding out the podium finishes.
