Martin Truex Jr. began the third round, or round of eight, of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with a dominant performance to win the First Data 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday. With his series-leading seventh win, so far, of the season,Truex claimed his position in the championship finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in three weeks. His latest win also was the 17th for Joe Gibbs Racing through the 33 races, so far, this year and the second-straight for JGR.
“I can’t believe we just won Martinsville, man,” Truex said. “Miami is awesome, but we’ve wanted to win here for a long time, but the guys have worked so hard. I’ve worked so hard. I used to just be terrible here, and just an awesome bunch of guys.”
William Byron challenged Truex immediately after the restart that came after the 11th and final caution of the race for an incident involving Michael McDowell and Daniel Hemric on lap 471. Truex was able to built somewhat of a gap on Byron in the closing laps, but Byron maintained his position for his second-career runner-up finish and his fifth top-five finish of the season. Byron ran in the top-five for more of Sunday’s race than any other race of his Cup Series career, to date.
“He was really strong,” Byron said of Truex. “I could work my brake bias a little bit in the car and gain a little bit, and then, I’d get to him and I’d heat them up a lot and kind of fall back. So I don’t really know. He was super strong. Our car bounced a little bit on the short run, which was tough to kind of get around, but overall, it was a really good day. This isn’t a place that I’ve loved coming to, and it just clicked this weekend — the things we did with the car going into qualifying and then, obviously, our race. So I’m super excited, but second is not super fun either, so we’ll try to get one spot better next time.”
Brad Keselowski finished third a week after his elimination from the playoffs at Kansas Speedway. Playoff drivers Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-five.
“We were in the top-five all day, and I thought we had a good shot at second,” Blaney said. “We weren’t good on short runs. We were terrible for probably 30-40 laps, and then, we’d come alive and be great but just didn’t have the speed.”
After finishing the race inside the top-five, Hamlin was involved in an altercation with another playoff driver, Joey Logano. Crew members from both drivers’ teams also got involved, attempting to pull their respective driver away from the confrontation.
“I got fenced down the straightaway and just went to talk about it. I was a little frustrated by the situation, and I went down to talk to him and didn’t really get the answers I was looking for,” Logano said. “I was frustrated about the situation, obviously. I really wanted to go over there and talk to him and get his side of the story on what happened, and he just said, ‘I ran you up in the wall, basically.’ He wasn’t as apologetic as I was looking for, and that probably escalated the situation too much. I shouldn’t have shoved him. For all the kids watching, that wasn’t the best thing to do, but I was frustrated; tempers are high. It’s the playoffs, so that’s what happens.”
Truex led 464 of the 500 laps that made up the race, a record for laps led in a single race at Martinsville. The other 36 laps were led by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin and Kyle Larson.
“I don’t think anyone expected that,” Truex said. “This race track in general, you don’t see that. Hats off to my guys. Pit crew was stellar today, and we didn’t make many adjustments. We adjusted on early and it came to life, and that was a lot of fun. I don’t know; maybe now I’ve got this place figured out. Who knows? But just really proud of everybody, and after last year; we talked earlier, everybody wants to keep talking about last year, and I’m like, we’ve got work to do. I’m just proud of everybody for giving me a race car like that and being able to put it all together today when it counted.”
Hamlin started on the pole and led the first 30 laps. When Chase Elliott, who qualified second, was forced to drop to the back of the field ahead of the green flag because of an engine change during first practice Saturday morning, Truex moved into second.
Elliott raced into the top-10 on lap 77, but he was forced to the garage by a broken axle, sustained during his pit stop during a lap 178 caution for a Ty Dillon spin. Elliott went 52 laps down before he was able to return to the track on lap 237. Upon his return, he had to serve a pit road penalty for having too many crew members over the pit wall during his top prior to going to the garage.
Elliott was in 38th, last, position when he returned to the track. He wound up 36th at the checkered flag, gaining two positions as a result of Aric Almirola and Jimmie Johnson’s early exits from the race following a multi-car crash on lap 361.
Kyle Busch also was involved but was able to continue to a 14th-place finish. Busch was the only playoff driver other than Elliott to finish the race outside the top-10.
“I’m not sure what started those two cars spinning [#10 of Almirola and #18 of Busch],” Johnson said. “While they were spinning, I made an early decision to go where I thought the road would be open but, by the time I got there, it was closed up. Wrong place, wrong time.”
Truex maintained second until he was able to get out of the pits first during the first caution of the race that came out on lap 28 because of debris on the frontstretch.
Hamlin lost additional positions on pit road but was second to his teammate by lap 48. He remained in second until Truex took his first of two stage wins on lap 130. Truex also won the second stage on lap 260.
Truex lapped Larson on lap 125, but after the opening stage ended five laps later, Larson was the recipient of the free pass back onto the lead lap. Larson, then, was the only lead-lap driver who stayed out during a lap-252 caution when Clint Bowyer had a flat tire. As a result, he was the leader for the restart with only a handful of laps in the second stage. Truex retook the lead on the final lap of the stage.
The caution on lap 252 was the first of two that resulted from flat tires for Bowyer. He had another flat on lap 449.
Finishing the race sixth through 10th were Kurt Busch; playoff drivers Kevin Harvick, Logano and Larson; and Ryan Newman. Newman’s top-10 came after starting in the back because of his car failing post-qualifying/pre-race inspection.
“We just out-tired, there, at the end,” Blaney said. ”Those other guys had tires and we didn’t, and it didn’t work out the best for us. It was a challenge. They did a good job. Our pit stops were awesome today. That made a big difference and just came up short.”
Discussion about this post