It took an extra day to do it, but Martin Truex Jr. finally won a Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Truex thoroughly dominated the postponed Crayon 301 on Monday in Loudon, N.H., for his first win at the flat oval in NASCAR’s top series.
Starting outside of polesitter Christopher Bell, Truex was the class of the field, putting his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at the point and cruising around the 1.058-mile layout.
However, Truex, 43, had to win a nine-lap shootout over Joey Logano and Kyle Larson following the event’s eighth caution period after Bell wrecked. Truex bested Logano by 0.394 seconds.
In his third win this season and 34th of his career, the Mayetta, N.J. native led 254 laps.
The 2017 Cup Series champion won for the second time in three Monday makeup races thus far. He was triumphant at Dover Motor Speedway on May 1.
Truex had previously won at New Hampshire in the K&N and Busch series. His best Cup finish before Monday had been third.
“What we’ve been able to do here over the years is pretty remarkable, and to not win was really getting frustrating,” said Truex, who first came to Loudon as an 8-year-old. “This is the first big track I ever came to with my dad and watched and first time I’d ever seen Cup cars and Busch cars in person.
“It’s been a special place for us. … This one’s been eluding me for a long, long time.”
The 301-lapper at the Magic Mile was postponed Sunday morning for rain. That left defending winner Bell and Truex up front for the noon Monday start.
Entering the race, Truex’s 916 laps led were the most by any winless driver at NHMS, but he drove flawlessly despite slightly losing the handle late in the race.
Larson took third, followed by Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski.
Without a victory and 26th in points, 2020 title winner Chase Elliott took a hit in the standings by coming home 12th.
Third in points as the race started, Kyle Busch crashed out of the event on Lap 70 — his fourth DNF — and finished last in the 36-car field.
Truex had to pass William Byron and easily won Stage 1 by two seconds, while Busch came to the line with serious right-side damage after slamming the Turn 4 wall.
Following the third caution period, Aric Almirola, Larson, Logano and Harvick all restarted in the top two rows due to changing two tires instead of four, while Truex was fifth.
But Almirola crashed hard on the restart, and eventually Truex drove to another stage victory by beating Larson to the stripe by nearly a second on Lap 185.
–Field Level Media
