Truex upbeat about joining DEI

Truex finished seventh in the Ford 300 at Homestead Miami Speedway last weekend, one place ahead of Clint Bowyer, the only other man mathematically capable of taking the title.

Truex is graduating for a full Nextel Cup run next season, with DEI, the sister team to his Chance 2 team that helped his secure this season's Busch title.

"I'm look forward to the future with all of those guys.," Truex said "They're awesome. It's been a rough year, up and down and up and down. Seemed like there was somebody that didn't want us to win this thing, and we were just too strong of a team to let it happen.

"Thank God it's over. Man, we could not do anything right for the past two months and I'm just glad it's over. This is awesome.

"This is one of my favourite cars. The 8 team, the 15 team, all the guys were in there hustling. I have to thank them for that."

Truex's title meant he was the first man to achieve consecutive Busch series titles since his team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr achieved the feat in 1998 and '99.

"It was a lot harder," he added. "Everybody in the wintertime said we needed to win the thing and we were going to run away with it. And it got to us, too. We weren't ready for this year when it started and found ourselves way behind.

"We were, you know, nearly 400 points out and 10th at one time, I think (actually 344 points behind and in seventh place in the standings). And we just said let's go home and build new cars and try to win some races. We never thought we could win the thing.

"Next thing you know we're knocking on the door to winning races and finish in the top three every week. We got the points lead and we had a good lead and everything was going good. All after sudden just everything went upside-down and we could run second and get a flat or we could, you know, just countless things kept happening to us.

"We weren't finishing where we were running and sometimes weren't running that good and it was frustrating. We stuck together as a team. And it shows today. I couldn't be prouder. This thing is three times harder than last year and I'm three times more proud of all these guys here."