The biggest day in motorsport ended with Martin Truex Jr. in victory lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday night, celebrating a win in the Coca-Cola 600. It was his third Monster Energy NASCAR points-paying win of the season, all coming in the last five races, and his second win in the last four Coca-Cola 600s. Truex’s latest win was the eighth in the first 13 races of the season for team owner Joe Gibbs, who was announced last week as a 2020 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee officially to be inducted next January.
“This is just a special race,” Truex said. “The longest race of the year. So much history. What this weekend means for all the soldiers and all those that have given the ultimate sacrifice so we can even be here. The Null Family that’s on my car – Chief Petty Officer [Nicholas] Null. I met his family this weekend and they were so appreciative of NASCAR and teams and everybody for doing this. I can’t wait to see them here. They said we were going to win, and now we get to have a cold beer and celebrate. Just appreciate everybody on this weekend. It’s definitely a special one. Kudos to NASCAR and all the teams for putting it all together.”
Truex was third on a restart with five laps remaining in the 400-lap race, NASCAR’s longest of the season. The top-four drivers went four-wide for the lead right after the race returned to green, and Truex got out to the lead with a push from Joey Logano.
Logano finished second, one position shy of giving car owner Roger Penske his second win of the day after Penske driver Simon Pagenaud scored Penske his 18th Indianapolis 500 victory.
“We had a rough start to this thing,” Logano said. “The guys did a good job fixing it up to where we were competitive at the end and had a shot to win, so that’s all you can ask for. I don’t know how we got from where we thought we were gonna be good in practice and then started the race really bad. I’m glad we made some good adjustments to get somewhat close. The Coke 600 is such a big deal to win, especially as a Coke driver. You want to make it happen, and we were close, but we’ll just have to wait again to next year and go at it. Like I said, if you told me we were gonna finish second early in the race, I would have taken it, but when you actually finish second and you see the lead that close, you don’t want to take it.”
Kyle Busch finished third, Chase Elliott was fourth, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fifth.
Truex wasn’t as dominant Sunday night as he was in the 2016 Coca-Cola 600 when he led all but eight laps or 12 miles, but he did lead a race-high 116 laps this time around, with most of those laps led coming after lap 250.
Truex led early in the race, but he spun from the lead and scraped the wall on lap 74 as a result of a flat right-front tire. He was one of six drivers to suffer flat right-fronts in the first half of the race, all having at least some affiliation with Joe Gibbs Racing or being from the JTG-Daugherty Racing camp.
“I don’t know how we did it, honestly,” Truex said. “I blew that right-front tire earlier and hit the fence off [turn] four. I thought, man, that’s not good. I know this car is pretty banged up. We just fought back from it. We kept working on the car and kept adjusting on the car. What a rocket ship this Bass Pro Toyota was this weekend. I felt good about it in practice, but you just don’t know and these mile-and-a-halfs have been tough on us this year – kind of scratching and clawing trying to find something. Kansas a few weeks ago was really a reality check for us. It’s one of our best tracks and we really struggled there and knew we had to get to work. Just hats off to the guys for listening to my input and what I had to say. We had a pretty good car at the All-Star race last weekend, but we knew it wasn’t good enough. They went to work this week and made it better. I’m just really proud, really happy for everybody at JGR back in the shop, Toyota, Bass Pro Shops, Auto Owners, everybody that helps us here. The TRD [Toyota Racing Development] engine was unbelievable tonight. We overheated early when we had that damage, and it held together. I don’t know what else to say. Just an awesome team. I’m blessed to drive for JGR. Thanks to Coach [Gibbs] and everybody. It’s been awesome.”
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Truex and Jones each experienced a flat tires that resulted in contact with the retaining wall in the first 100-laps, as did Leavine Family Racing driver Matt DiBenedetto. LFR has a technical alliance with JGR. Unlike Truex, Jones and DiBenedetto suffered too much damage to their cars to continue.
“We had a really good Reser’s Camry. I think we were in a really good position to work our way forward and just lost a tire,” Jones said. “That hasn’t happened to me in a long time, so it’s just unfortunate. I don’t know if we ran something over. It’s a bummer; you don’t want to be out of the 600 this early, and we had a car that could have contended today. Just have to go back to work and go get them next week.”
After the three incidents a Goodyear representative attributed the problem to those teams starting with right-front tire air pressures too low.
In the second 100-lap stage, another Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Denny Hamlin, and both JTG-Daugherty Racing drivers, Ryan Preece and Chris Buescher, suffer the same fate. All were able to continue. Hamlin, though, suffered another flat tire and spun into the wall while running sixth with 41 laps remaining. He was running 10th when he wrecked a final time on the final lap by spinning and making hard contact with the inside wall.
Truex was second when the yellow flag waved for the 11th time on lap 250. He got off pit road first to return to the lead and was still up front to win the third stage of the race that ended at lap 300.
Truex lost the lead to Elliott when Elliott beat him out of the pits during the caution that followed the third of four stages. After a couple more cautions, Truex retook the lead with 57 laps remaining.
Brad Keselowski won both of the first two 100 laps stages while leading 73 laps in the first half of the race. Keselowski had pitted late in the second stage when a caution came out on lap 189, but he pitted again after the stage ended, because he thought he had a loose wheel. Other drivers who pitted before the stage ended stayed out between the second and third stages.
Keselowski remained outside the top-10 for a significant stretch in the second half of the race. He got back inside the top0-five soon after a restart that followed a caution for a seven-car crash with 85 laps remaining.
Kyle Larson, who had gotten back up to third in the running order after a pit-road penalty and getting caught on pit road by a caution, took blame for the wreck that also involved Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Clint Bowyer, Preece, Paul Menard and David Ragan.
Keselowski fell back out of contention, though, when he spun with 10 laps remaining.
Buscher finished sixth, followed by three Hendrick Motorsports teammates — Alex Bowman, Jimmie Johnson and pole sitter William Byron. Adding to Elliott’s top-five, all four HMS drivers finished in the top-10.
Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-10.
