From the very beginning, Martin Truex Jr. dominated the race and he ended up leading a record amount of laps at the track.
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“There’s a lot of emotion right now, not real sure it’s sunk in yet”, Truex said.
Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the competition and that’s exactly what Jimmie Johnson did on Sunday night after the Coca-Cola 600.
Johnson was the only other driver to lead for more than two laps. He broke a 49-year-old race record for most laps led, replacing the mark set by Jim Paschal in 1967. “I knew if I could get out there in clean air, I could make stuff happen”, Truex said about the final green-flag run.
“Yeah, I mean it’s wonderful”, Pollex said.
Truex also came ever so close to winning the season-opening Daytona 500, only to finish second to Denny Hamlin by 0.010 seconds in the closest finish in the race’s history.
Truex took the surprise out of this one early and was barely touched by the field. With the win, he now will have a spot in the Chase. He was in the lead for 392 out of 400 laps and easily won NASCAR’s longest race.
Truex’s single-car Furniture Row Racing team outclassed the armada of multicar Sprint Cup powerhouses.
Four-time Coca-Cola 600 victor Johnson was on Truex’s door a handful of times on restarts, then would fade back.
Harvick, who won the race in 2011 and 2013, was the best of rest as he got by Johnson 44 laps from the end – yet never made a serious run at the top. “It was just the auto was so strong that I don’t think anybody was going to touch the thing tonight”. “Tonight he wasn’t going to be denied there was no way around that”.
But once the racing began properly, it was a thriller featuring multiple crashes and Red Bull’s pit crew not being ready for Ricciardo’s tire change.
It was Hamilton’s 44th career win – the same number as his vehicle – and only his second at Monaco, where he finished third a year ago after being caught behind a safety auto following a late team order to pit. Pollex had her appendix, spleen, ovaries, fallopian tubes and part of her stomach removed due to the rigorous treatment but remained committed to Truex and his racing, making Sunday’s win all the more special.
“We’re going to keep pushing hard and work toward that championship goal”, Truex said.
Owner Roger Penske, who had a disappointing day at Indianapolis, hoped to rebound with his NASCAR duo of Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, who won the All-Star race at the track last weekend.
While serving the drive-through penalty, Edwards was too fast again on pit road and was hit with a stop-and-go penalty resulting in going a lap down.
Truex has been knocking on victory’s door all season long but hadn’t gone through until now. Busch wound up 33rd at Charlotte after finishing 30th at Dover.
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KYLE BUSCH’S STRUGGLES: It’s been a bad few outings for defending series champ Kyle Busch, who had lived among the top five most of the season. Truex locked up a spot in Chase for a Championship and marked himself as a auto to beat heading into the summer. There were just four cautions – and one of those was to check tire wear over the first 25 laps. The four caution periods took up just 19 laps, leading to Charlotte records for fastest average speed (160.644 mph) and fastest race (3 hours, 44 minutes, 8 seconds).
