MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Martin Truex Jr. admits to being surprised by his success at Martinsville Speedway.
Truex won a thrilling, lap-long duel for the lead against teammate Denny Hamlin in the rain-delayed NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday night, winning a third time in the last four stops at the 0.526 mile oval – the oldest and shortest In the World. series.
“This place has become a playground for us, I think,” said Truex in Victory Lane. “We didn’t have the best car all day, but we just kept working on it and never stopped.”
Truex, who repeatedly nudged Hamlin in the corners and tried to enter the straights unsuccessfully, eventually made it to the pass with 15 laps to go, and ducked under Hamlin coming out of the second corner. He sailed to victory without another challenge, while Hamlin and Chase Elliott competed the rest of the way for second place.
Truex became the first repeat winner in NASCAR’s top series this season.
The race rained out after 42 laps on Saturday-evening and was completed as the second part of a doubleheader that began with the completion of Friday night’s rain-delayed Xfinity Series race.
Elliott, who won here last fall on his way to winning the championship, held Hamlin for second place. Hamlin came in third, followed by William Byron and Kyle Larson.
“That was a lot of fun there at the end, racing with Denny,” said Truex of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate. “We raced cleanly and came out on top.”
The Gibbs team finished with all four drivers in the top 10 when Christopher Bell finished seventh and Kyle Busch tenth, leaving team owner Joe Gibbs excited and relieved.
“I was just praying Denny and Martin wouldn’t run forward together,” Gibbs said.
The result was disappointing not only for Hamlin, who had a dominant car and led 276 laps, but also for Ryan Blaney, who won the first two stages and led 157 laps, but dragged an airgun out of his pit after the final stop and sent it back to 19th in the field.
Blaney rallied to finish eleventh, but before that, he and Hamlin were dominant.
Blaney passed Hamlin for the lead in lap 75 and drove to victory in the 130-lap Stage 1, and Stage 2 played much the same. Hamlin was quick at the start of the run and moved comfortably ahead, but Blaney eventually drove him down to win that stage as well.
Hamlin’s third place finish was his best seventh top five run in eight races.
“We had a really fast car for about 20 laps, and then he would just leave,” said Hamlin. “We just stay in the top three every week. Every stage, every finish – we’re here. We just have to get a little better. We barely miss it.”
The race saw several drastic changes in fortunes, perhaps no bigger than for Joey Logano. He was in danger of being overlapped at the end of the first leg, but gambled with others halfway through the race by staying on the track to gain position when most of the leaders made the pit stop.
It worked because another warning flew shortly after, allowing him to hit the pit lane for the fresh tires most other teams already had and stay ahead the rest of the way.
Logano finished sixth.
Misfortune happened to Alex Bowman, Brad Keselowski and several others due to a major backstretch backstretch with over a dozen cars on lap 387. Bowman had come as high as second before getting caught in the mess that ended his day, and Keselowski, a two-time winner in Martinsville, also had to call it a day after the wreckage.
“It’s just part of the short track deal,” said Keselowski.
The accident started when Kyle Busch and Chris Buescher exited Turn 2 together.
Daniel Suarez was also involved and drove around the oval to the entrance of Turn 1, got out of his car when it caught fire and walked away when it went up in flames.