He would restart the race 12th and never regain the lead from Martin Truex Jr.
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Truex led the final 28 laps and held off 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. Larson won his first career Sprint Cup race last Sunday in MI.
He was in vintage form Sunday night at Darlington Raceway, where he seemed to intentionally wreck Brian Scott in a move that earned him a post-race sit-down with NASCAR’s bigwigs.
And that was the difference in Truex’s unexpected victory in Sunday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. We’ve had super-fast race cars. We will be making predictions, breaking down the race, analyzing and just having a good time.
“We were supposed to get married in the winner’s circle but because of so much rain they allowed us to do it in the museum”, said Cooper. “I just couldn’t be more excited”.
Martin Truex Jr. made the Chase last season and advanced to the final four at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In all, Harvick lost a total of 17 positions on pit road. Denny Hamlin took over the lead after needing only 11 seconds for his stop. Especially with the elimination-style, one-bad-race-can-ruin-you Chase for the Sprint Cup format, any driver who doesn’t win a championship really can’t look at it to define success. Harvick asked his team over the radio afterward. Plus, the race remains one of the crown jewels of the season.
Truex won a late race off pit road and led the final 12 laps en route to his second win of the season. (27) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 365. 23. He was still running second when the caution came out – and this time, his team got him on and off pit road in a timely manner. Larson took second from Harvick on the restart, but Harvick quickly got back by to retake the second spot for good. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver had to come from traffic in order to get back to the front and was able to rally back for a second place finish.
“I feel like they’re my only sanity check, because I’m like, ‘Well, at least it happens to them, too, ‘” Pearn said about the Harvick team. Stewart and Scott made contact and as Stewart gathered his auto on the inside of the track, he chose to swing back up and clip the left corner of Scott sending him spinning to the inside wall. “I was trying to let Tony (Stewart) go there and I think he got inside of me and got loose there”. I have a lot of respect for Tony. “I’ve always loved this racetrack”. Officials called Stewart and crew chief Mike Bugarewicz to their hauler at the end.
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This team certainly had no problem celebrating a win even if it didn’t have the best auto. 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. All three of those winless drivers – rookie Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon and Jamie McMurray – can’t afford to have another driver win for a first time at Richmond this week, the final race of the postseason.
