Truex led the final 28 laps and held off the Kevin Harvick’s powerhouse vehicle to win the Southern 500, closing the summer season with a second of Sprint Cup’s “crown jewel” races on Labor Day weekend.
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It was Truex’s second win of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, and the fourth of his Cup career.
Jeff Gordon checks out his vehicle before NASCAR Sprint Cup auto racing practice at Darlington Raceway Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016, in Darlington, S.C.
While David Pearson, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip dominated Darlington from this weekend’s celebrated 1975-84 era, in the modern years there have now been 11 different drivers in victory lane over its last 11 races: Greg Biffle (2006), Jeff Gordon (2007), Kyle Busch (2008), Mark Martin (2009), Denny Hamlin (2010), Regan Smith (2011), Jimmie Johnson (2012), Matt Kenseth (2013), Kevin Harvick (2014), Carl Edwards (2015) and Truex (2016).
Cole Pearn, Truex’s crew chief, can relate. The only crew from the four-car organization not slated to make the playoffs is the one that works with Danica Patrick. “I just couldn’t be more excited”.
“We have championship cars and we’re just mediocre on pit road”, Harvick said.
“It is pretty edgy, ” said Jamie McMurray, who holds the 16th and final spot in the Sprint Cup championship Chase.
Hamlin was first off pit road during the yellow flag but lost the lead to Larson soon after the restart. “We got unbelievable fuel mileage”.
“Our team in the garage did a great job”, Harvick said. In that race, he led a race-high 238 laps on his way to the win.
It was a dominant night for Kevin Harvick, as he led 214 laps, but pit road mistakes cost him the win.
When Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola tangled shortly thereafter, destroying Almirola’s handsome No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports throwback auto, Harvick caught a break. “So it’s definitely a sweet feeling to come to victory lane and be able to overcome that and make our vehicle the best that we could at the end of the race and ultimately get the job done”.
It was Truex’s fifth Sprint Cup win and first in 11 career Darlington races.
Martin Truex Jr. was less than six inches from joining a very elite group of NASCAR drivers. From there, however, Harvick could not chase Truex down and was forced to settle for second. “I was trying to let Tony (Stewart) go there and I think he got inside of me and got loose there”. He also was involved in an incident with Brian Scott on lap 203 in which he put Scott into the wall.
Paul Menard had a tire failure and hit Kurt Busch, who spun and hit the wall, destroying his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet and bringing out the caution with 40 laps to go.
“We were just in a bad situation”. That’s right… I’ll say it again… Apparently he got mad at me. I have a lot of respect for Tony.
Thats going to be a good track for us, McMurray said. It is uncertain for now if Stewart and his team will be penalized anything because of the incident. “All in all, it was good to be a contender two weeks in a row”, he said. 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.
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“I’ve been wanting to win here for a long time, ” Sadler crowed after. “I’m not sure if he thought I was trying to hold him up”. Bowyer now sits 27th in points, has led just a single lap all season and has yet to post a top-5 finish.
