DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Martin Truex Sr. had a familiar deckhand this week when he took a fishing trip off the coast of South Florida. Truex first brought his son, a teenager at the time, into the family business aboard a clamming boat. The son would rise before dawn, sometimes sprung to life from the chilly bite of the ocean or the ruckus of choppy waves.
Martin Truex Jr. knew early he wouldn't anchor to a life at sea.
Martin Truex Jr. removes his helmet after qualifying for the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Martin Truex Jr. stands on pit road prior to his qualifying run for the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)"I just remember trying to stay awake in between tows - 'This is so boring,'" he recalled, laughing. "Then you got to go outside and freeze your you-know-what off for 30 minutes at a time. I remember it being tough and thinking that I don't want to do this for the rest of my life."
On this recent trip, he and his father skipped chasing the clams and cast a wider net. They caught three sailfish on their first day out while chatting about business and life but focusing most of all on simply having a good time.
"We never even talked about racing," Martin Sr. said.
Oh yeah, his boy's weekend job. The kid who never developed a taste for clamming instead followed one of his dad's other passions by climbing into a race car.
Once a journeyman driver, Martin Jr. enters this season as the class - and envy - of the field. Just recently, he was a guest on the "Today" show, rooted on his beloved Philadelphia Eagles as they upset the New England Patriots at Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis and had the honor of inducting a NASCAR Hall of Famer last month.
And that's just part of his celebration tour since winning his first Cup Series title last November.
"It's been a crazy, busy offseason," he said.
Truex, 37, reaped the rewards of a start-to-finish dominant season in which he reeled off eight victories, 26 top-10 finishes and a victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway that clinched the crown with dad watching from atop the pit box.
Did someone say encore?
"I feel like the last three seasons, we improved in every category every year," Truex said. "Obviously after last year, it's going to be tough to continue the trend. I think we're gearing up to do that. I felt like last year we could have won more races."
He enters Sunday's Daytona 500 feeling like his best is still ahead in Furniture Row Racing's No. 78 Toyota despite already undergoing a career rebirth that is rare in NASCAR history.
Truex won two races over 333 career starts from his debut with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2004 through a tumultuous tenure at Michael Waltrip Racing and a head-scratching first season with Furniture Row Racing in which he led one lap - one! - all year. He never finished better than 11th in the standings until 2015, and yet he has been eligible for the Cup Series championship in the season's final race two of the past three years.
"Every place that he's been prior to where he is now, there was some kind of disaster going on," Martin Sr. said. "He was never in a spot that was really stable until now. He needed the opportunity and the right people around you. It's all about the people, like any business."
Truex found professional peace far removed from NASCAR's hub in Charlotte, N.C.
Furniture Row Racing opened in 2005 in Denver on a shoestring budget and a part-time schedule that made the team a bit player among the sport's powerhouses. Truex and FRR had a shotgun marriage of sorts out of the wreckage of the Michael Waltrip Racing cheating scandal that crippled Waltrip's operation and forced Truex out of a job. FRR and team owner Barney Visser scrambled to find a replacement for Kurt Busch, and what started as a bit of a blind date has morphed into long-term bliss.
Truex won a race in 2015 and reached the championship round, then won four times in 2016, setting the stage for his career year. He led a whopping 2,253 laps and posted an average finish of 6.8 in 2017 - better numbers than Jimmie Johnson posted in any of his record-tying seven championship seasons.
Dad figured out long ago Martin Jr. was on a path toward greatness.
"Racing was always much more of a passion than as a fisherman," the father said.
Martin Sr., who raised his family in Mayetta, N.J., raced on free weekends when he wasn't running Sea Watch International, the world's largest harvester and processor of clam products. He raced 15 times from 1989 to 1998 in NASCAR's second-tier series and never finished in the top 10. While dad raced, mom Linda took Martin to go-kart tracks and steeled her nerves as the blossoming driver got caught up in some gnarly wrecks.
In 2000, the inevitable happened: the Truexes went head-to-head in a low-level NASCAR race. The father qualified fourth, his son fifth and well, let the champ pick it up from there: "I started running him down. I'm like, I'm catching him. My eyes are this big, catching my dad, catching my dad. Running him down, catching him, getting to two car lengths - that's when I had my issue. We didn't get to race. I just wanted to race him, like, get side by side or something and see."
Martin Jr. was forced to retire his car because of mechanical problems - and dad soon followed suit, retiring from racing altogether.
"He had a brand new car and engine; I had an old one. I was catching him. He's like, 'I'm out. I'm done,'" Martin Jr. said, smiling.
Martin Sr. had a more pragmatic explanation: "He was very good at it, and we couldn't afford to run two cars."
Truex is in the same spot this year now that FRR has ended its one-season dalliance as a two-car operation and returned to focusing on him - the driver who provided proof even small, committed teams can succeed with just the right guy in the big-bucks world of NASCAR. FRR's decision to promote Cole Pearn to crew chief in 2015, followed a year later with a switch to Toyota and a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing have made all the difference.
Truex expects to have all his loved ones - including longtime girlfriend Sherry Pollex - at the track this weekend when he tries to win the Daytona 500 for the first time. The green flag is about to drop on Truex's bid to become NASCAR's second active driver with multiple Cup Series championships.
"We know exactly what we were doing. We know exactly how we did it," Truex said. "We just have to try to repeat that."