Martin Truex Jr. casts a line to help a worthy cause during Ford Championship Weekend
Martin Truex Jr. always looks forward to the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and not just because he’s usually in the running to win the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Truex, who won the race and the points title in 2017, finished second in this past Sunday’s race to finish second in the point standings for the second consecutive year. He started his weekend on Friday by finishing third in the Hot Rods & Reels charity tournament held on the infield lake at the speedway.
The driver of the Bass Pro Shops car grew up freshwater and saltwater fishing in New Jersey, as well as hunting ducks and deer, so the opportunity to catch largemouth and peacock bass and help those is need is something Truex has done every year he’s raced in Homestead.
“There were some little lakes around that I fished as a kid, that I rode my bike to,” Truex said. “My family all fished. I fished in the bay for fluke, stripers, weakfish, you name it. A little bit of everything.”
The tournament created by paralyzed National Hot Rod Association Hall of Fame drag racer Darrell Gwynn raises money for The Darrell Gwynn Quality of Life Chapter of The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis (www.thebuonicontifund.com/darrellgwynn).
That money funds spinal cord injury research at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and also provides state-of-the-art wheelchairs for those who can’t afford them.
“It’s one of our marquee fundraisers because we have such a good time and raise money. It’s a great platform for us and NASCAR,” said Gwynn, of Weston. “Whenever you can raise money and have fun and fish and enjoy the great outdoors at the same time, that’s called a win-win-win-win-win-win-win.”
Gwynn presented an electric wheelchair valued at more than $20,000 to Jean Saint-Ange of Miami, who was paralyzed from the chest down in August when he fell while trimming a tree. The head chef at a Caribbean restaurant, Saint-Ange, 32, does physical therapy at The Miami Project and was grateful to Gwynn for the technological marvel.
“I had a sucky chair,” Saint-Ange said. “Now I have a new chair. This is going to be much better for me. It’ll open a lot of doors for me.”
Gwynn, whose wheelchair cost $25,000, explained how essential it is to have a proper chair.
“We live in them,” Gwynn said. “They’re fitted to us. Without these chairs we’d have tons of health problems. They stretch us out. I call them ‘love chairs’ because there are so many different positions.
“It’s always good when you can [give away a wheelchair] in front of the drivers and see where the money goes. It’s life-changing for Jean. The only bad thing is he had to get up early in the morning to get it. And that’s not a bad deal.”
Getting up early was not an issue for Truex, who was joined on the infield lake by NASCAR team owner Richard Childress and legendary driver Bobby Allison, as well as current racers Paul Menard, Joey Gase and Joey Logano.
Truex, who spends most of his time at his home in Southwest Florida but also has a home in North Carolina where NASCAR’s race teams are located, spends much of his free time on the water. He has two bass boats that he uses in North Carolina and a 25-foot Contender bay boat that he received for winning the 2017 race that he uses to fish for snook, redfish and tarpon in Florida.
“I love catching snook. They’re so much fun,” Truex said. “Depending on the track, there are places where we fish. It’s always fun to get out after practice and fish rather than killing time in my trailer at the track.”
Rodd Sayler of Margate, who fishes offshore and has won countless bass tournaments in the Everglades and at Lake Okeechobee with teammate Steven Forssell, said he was impressed by how hard Truex fished in the charity tournament, where everyone used live shiners for bait.
“Mr. Truex was awesome,” Sayler said. “He fished harder than we did I think. He went through more bait. He kept a fresh bait on the whole time.”
The Bass Pro team led by Childress won the tournament. The three heaviest fish caught by the three-angler team weighed a total of 12.84 pounds and was highlighted by an impressive 7.72-pound peacock bass caught by Paul Hileman.
