Martin Truex Jr., Cole Pearn likely to reunite for 2025 Daytona 500

Martin Truex Jr. said Wednesday that a ride for the 2025 Daytona 500 is in the works, and that his crew chief will have a familiar name: Cole Pearn.

Truex first revealed the news on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, confirming the details in a later rotation during Wednesday’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Media Day rounds at the Charlotte Convention Center.

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“That’s right. I didn’t know it was that big of news,” laughed Truex, who announced in June that the 2024 Cup Series season would be his last as a full-time driver. “I thought people knew already, so I might have let the cat out of the bag prematurely.”

Truex, 44, has been bullish on piecing together a ride in the Feb. 16 season opener at Daytona International Speedway ever since his announcement, telling the Dale Jr. Download that a Daytona 500 ride was “almost a guarantee.” Joe Gibbs Racing teammate and 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin offered Truex a ride on the spot in the hours after his announcement.

“I think it’s all but done, but until they say the word, and it’s always up in the air,” Truex said ahead of the Aug. 24 race at Daytona International Speedway. “So it should work out.”

Pearn was crew chief for Truex’s team for five seasons (2015-19), and the pair won 24 races during that span, including the Cup Series title in 2017. He stepped away after the 2019 campaign, returning just twice — once as a spotter for the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team at the Charlotte Roval in 2021, and again in a one-week deal as a fill-in engineer at Sonoma Raceway in 2022.

Coercing Pearn back from retirement once more didn’t take much, Truex said.

“In just talking, it just kind of popped out,” he said. “Like, ‘would you be interested in doing that?’ ‘Yeah, I think so.’ So just talking. It’s gonna be fun.”

Pearn is not much a stranger to the current Joe Gibbs Racing program, remaining a consultant in recent years and “keeping his fingers on everything,” Truex added. Their relationship today does not differ much from when Pearn was atop the pit box either.

“We don’t talk very often, but when we do, it’s just like old times,” Truex said Wednesday. “He can pretty much read me like a book. He knows exactly what I’m thinking. I don’t know, it’s just, he’s a special guy. He’s different than anyone I’ve ever known. He knows everything. He knows the answer to everything. And he tells you things, you’re like, how’d you know that?”

While details remain unsettled on Truex’s part-time endeavors in 2025, there are a pair of numbers he’d like to choose between: Nos. 56 and 78. Truex drove the No. 56 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing from 2010-13. However, Truex Jr. wheeled the No. 78 car from 2014-2018 with Furniture Row Racing, winning the NASCAR Cup Series title in 2017 with those digits donning the door.

“It’s probably either going to be 78 or 56, 78 being our championship number which is a special one for me, obviously,” Truex said. “And then my number was always 56, so we’ll see.”

Truex and current crew chief James Small enter the 2024 playoffs as the No. 16 seed in the 16-driver postseason field, with the No. 19 Toyota just one point beneath the provisional elimination line.