Martin Truex Jr. took the lead with 28 laps remaining and never looked back as he finished first in the Bojangles Southern 500 in Darlington Sunday.
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It was Truex’s second win of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, and the fourth of his Cup career.
NASCAR will argue the sport is bigger than one, two or three personalities, and that the stable is full of young talent to carry stock auto racing deep into the future.
It was Johnson’s ninth finish outside the top 10 in his past 12 races – not the form his team hoped to have in chasing a seventh Sprint Cup title.
Harvick did make a late rally despite his pit-road issues. “This is just the beginning for us, I think”. They’ll have a bad stop and come back and have a good stop.
“Yeah, we had a great vehicle”, Harvick said to NASCAR. Not with just one regular season left and the playoffs beginning September 17 when winning and losing will take on the utmost of importance. Two of his three teammates, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart, are locks for the Chase, so they’ll likely keep all of their crew members on their teams. Kyle Larson also flirted with the lead after stealing it from Denny Hamlin with 83 laps to go. We will be making predictions, breaking down the race, analyzing and just having a good time. Harvick asked his team over the radio afterward.
The mistake dropped Harvick from first to 12th and was one he couldn’t quite overcome as he finished second.
The wreck occurred on Lap 204 of the 367-lap race and ended the day for Scott, who was a lapped auto. You get in a position to win races, and they continually step on their toes and don’t make it happen.
Kevin Harvick started the race in the pole position, and led for 214 of the race’s 367 laps.
Harvick wound up finishing second to Martin Truex Jr. From there, however, Harvick could not chase Truex down and was forced to settle for second.
Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick circle the track last week at MI.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Jeff Gordon is mostly retired and Tony Stewart is nearly out the door.
The incident occurred on lap 203 as Scott, who was running four laps down, slid in front of the three-time Sprint Cup champion.
Scott, who said he has not had a problem with Stewart, said the contact seemed intentional. “I wasn’t”, Scott said.
“I’m through with being a cheerleader”, he said of his crew.
Truex pulled up to the inside wall to greet his crew, then taking off for some celebration donuts at the track “Too Tough To Tame”.
Stewart and his crew chief Mike Bugarewicz were called to a meeting with NASCAR officials after the race, suggesting Smoke intentionally spun Scott. It was sweet redemption for him at the 1.366-mile track where in 10 previous career starts he had led a total of almost 100 laps but the best finish he could manage was fifth. “I’ve been wanting to win this thing a long time”. “I am not sure what he thought was going on there”. A repeat performance could certainly be in the cards this weekend, and Harvick has to be considered the favorite to dominate the laps led and fastest laps run categories and finish as the top scorer in this format. “It was frustrating to lead laps here and let a few slip away”.
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“But we’ll do some celebrating tonight”.
