Truex Romps At Dover’s Monster Mile

Martin Truex Jr. races Jimmie Johnson during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Citizen Solider 400 at Dover International Speedway. [Credit: Sean Gardner/NASCAR via Getty Images]

By Joe Jennings

DOVER, DEL. – Taming the famed “Monster Mile” at the Dover International Speedway is no easy fete, but Martin Truex Jr. proved to be the exception as he overpowered the field, racing to victory in the Citizen Soldier 400, the final race in Round 1 of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Driving the Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota, Truex led 187 laps and lapped all but the top-six and had a winning margin of 7.527 seconds. Coming into the 2016 season, Truex had just three career victories and after a strong performance in 2016, he’s added four more, to include two of the last three in the first round of the Chase playoffs.

The New Jersey native has amassed 25 top-10 finishes in 2016.

Said the happy victor, “We’re not messing around I guess. I don’t know — what else can you say? We are here to get it done and golly I’m telling you just the best bunch of guys you could ever ask for. It’s just amazing to drive their race cars and do what we were able to do. I’m just ecstatic. So many people to thank again. I mean, this is just unbelievable. Especially here I love this race track. It’s been considered a home track for me for a long time. It’s been since ’07 since I won here.
“Golly, man, it’s just – I’ve got to pinch myself. It’s unbelievable. Thank you to Sprint and the fans and everybody. What an awesome race today. We’re ready to go to Charlotte.

“It’s unbelievable winning that many races in a year or that many races period. And, I mean that last month, month and a half has been ridiculous. It’s been a fairytale dream and all of the credit goes to all these guys, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) – the engine was incredible as always. I thought I blew it up out there. I went to do a burnout and it shut off and I couldn’t get it started.

“The victory lap was cool. That was for Alan Kulwicki. Mark Martin is always talking about it, and he’s my buddy so that was kind of half for him as well. He’s given me a lot of advice over the years and a lot of support, so it’s cool to be able to do that. All in all, this is a dream come true.

“Just an awesome day for all of us and looking forward to keeping this momentum going man. The sky is the limit with this team.”

Finishing second was Kyle Busch followed by Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano, all on the lead lap.

Trailing the top six were Jimmie Johnson, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon.

Sixteen drivers qualified for the Chase and the bottom four in the standings were eliminated today, notably Jamie Mc Murray, Kyle Larson, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher. The next round of three events starts Saturday night at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In the Chase seeding for the Round of 12, Truex leads with Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Kenseth, Logano, Elliott, Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Johnson and Dillon next in line.

Several Chase contenders had bad days. Misfortune started early for Harvick when his Chevrolet broke a trailing arm, sending him to the garage for repairs and losing 46 laps in the process. He finished 37th in the standings.

Shortly thereafter, Larson lost power and had to pit for electrical repairs. He returned to finish 25th.
Teammate McMurray’s engine blew on lap 193, blanketing the speedway in smoke.

Johnson, who led 89 laps, seemed to be headed for his 11th Dover triumph until a miscue on pit stop derailed his run. With the fueler coming over the wall too soon, Johnson was assessed with a drive-through penalty, dropping him back to 16th.

His team has been adversely affected by mistakes in four of last five races.

Four caution flags slowed the race for 22 laps.

Time of the race was 3 hours and 3 minutes with an average speed of 130.969 miles per hour.

Joe Jennings

racingnation.com

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