Martin Truex Jr. dominated the Toyota Save Mart 350, the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series road-course race of the year, at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday. He led 59 laps on his way to his fourth win of the season and second-consecutive Sonoma win. It was his third victory, overall, at the track.
''What a season we've turned this into,'' Truex said. ''This group, they're unbelievable. Hopefully we can keep this going.''
Truex’s previous two Sonoma wins came on a shorter layout, but the track’s Carousel was added the the NASCAR course for the first time since 1997, giving Truex and his fellow-competitors an additional challenge.
Joe Gibbs finished one-two, with Truex’s teammate Kyle Busch, a two-time Sonoma winner, finishing second.
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''He was obviously saving a lot,'' Busch of Truex. ''I knew he was going to have enough to be able to most likely hold us off, and I was right. I just tried everything I could.''
JGR had three cars in the top-five at the checkered flag, as Denny Hamlin finished fifth.
Ryan Blaney was a distant third, more than 20 seconds behind the JGR battle for the win. He was the only non-Toyota driver in the top-five at the finish.
“You come into every weekend expecting to run well, no matter if it is your best track or worst track,” Blaney said. “I don't really go into any weekend expecting to run a certain way. You just try to do your best. You just do the best you can during practice to get your car where it needs to be in the race. I thought we had pretty good speed all weekend. We had top-five speed all weekend, not winning speed. We kind of hung around all day. We were able to hang in there and stay out of trouble and able to come home with a decent day and a race car that was intact, which is good.”
Matt DiBenedetto finished fourth, his career-best Cup Series finish.
Truex gave up a lead to pit during a green-flag cycle of stops on lap 63, handing the lead to Busch. Busch stayed out three more laps, and when he and Hamlin finally pitted on lap 66, Truex retook the lead. He had a more than eight-second margin on Busch, who returned to the track in second.
Busch, on slightly newer tires, though, cut into Truex’s lead in the remaining laps. By lap 78, Busch had closed to within two seconds of the race leader.
''I just dug down deep, tried to be smooth and hit my marks,'' Truex said. ''It was definitely difficult. It felt terrible the last 20 laps. The last 10, it was like being on ice.''
William Byron and Hamlin were stage winners in the first half of the 90-lap race, with Byron winning the first 20-lap stage and Hamlin the second.
Byron started alongside pole sitter Kyle Larson and took the lead on the opening lap, a lead he maintained for the remainder of the opening stage. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott moved into second on the first lap and ran second to Bowman through most of the first stage before pitting in the closing laps of the stage.
Fifteen drivers, including Byron, stayed out until the end of the stage. Those 15 drivers, then, pitted during the caution and restarted outside the top-15 for the second stage. Elliott, stated out between the first two stages after pitting earlier to restart up front for stage two.
When the race restarted, Martin Truex Jr. took the lead from Elliott and ran up front until giving up the top spot to pit inside the final four laps of stage two. Fewer drivers stayed out until the end of the second stage, with only the top-six at the end of the stage having not yet made a second pit stop. As a result, when they pitted at the end of the stage, they restarted outside the top-20.
Truex was inside the top-10, even though he had already made his second pit stop, when the second stage ended. After everyone had pitted for the second time, he was the leader for the final 50-lap stage of the race.
Elliott continued to run inside the top-five early in the final stage, but he retired from the race with a blown engine with just under 30 laps remaining.
The yellow flag waved only twice during the race to separate the distance into its three stages. Although at least four drivers including Aric Almirola, Paul Menard, Ryan Preece and Michael McDowell either spun or got off track, there were no cautions for on-track incidents.
“I made a mistake, there, at the top of turn 3A and spun out, and basically, we fell to the rear,” Almirola said. “We went back all the way to last. After that, I just had to work my butt off to recover. We passed a lot of cars today. My Mustang was good. I just put us behind.”
Kevin Harvick finished sixth, Ryan Newman was seventh, Erik Jones eighth, Almirola ninth, and Larson rounded out the top-10.
“It was better than normal for us,” Larson said. “I fell back early, but I was just taking care of my stuff. I seem to be a lot better on long runs than normal, so I’m happy about that. And we came away with a top-10, so it was good.
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