Truex, Jr. Dominates For Darlington Throwback Victory

On NASCAR’s annual Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway, Martin Truex, Jr. was channeling his inner Ned Jarrett on Sunday afternoon.

Jarrett, a NASCAR Hall of Famer, won the 1965 Southern 500 at Darlington by a whopping 14 lap margin.

While it wasn’t quite that big, Truex dominated Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at the historic South Carolina race track, edging out a late challenge by Kyle Larson by 2.571 seconds.

Truex led the chase most of the day, pacing the field for 248 of the race’s 293 laps.

“I’m just real excited to be able to win here again,” said Truex after his second career Darlington victory. “This is an awesome place, Throwback weekend is really special. This is a good one. This is a big one. Even though this isn’t the Southern 500, it is pretty damn cool to win at Darlington, no matter when it is.”

It’s the 30th career NASCAR Cup Series victory for the Mayetta, New Jersey native. It’s also the third win of the season for Truex in a year when no other driver has won more than once.

“No question, we feel really, really good about that,” said Truex. “I think the most important part is we are winning with the low downforce package, which most of the Playoff races we run are. Phoenix was a really, really big confidence booster for us – to go there and win. I feel like we’ve carried it since there. We just have to keep this thing going. Guys are doing a really good job, all around. It’s so fun to drive race cars like that.”

The win also marks the first time since NASCAR began segmented racing that a driver that won a segment went on to score the win at Darlington.

“I’m glad I could do that. We have won a bunch of stage over these last few years – just Lady Luck always got us,” said Truex. “Track position, it would be one thing or the other. I’m extremely proud of everyone on this Auto Owners Camry.

Truex put his No. 19 Toyota – carrying a flat black paint job in honor of his former championship winning Furniture Row Racing team – on the point on lap 22 when his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch spun from the lead with a flat tire to bring out the second caution of the day.

From there, Truex was rarely out of the lead, winning both segments of the event and driving away from the competition.

The only real challenge came in the final 25 laps, when Larson began stalking him through lapped traffic. On one occasion, Larson was able to almost get in a position to try to make a move to take the lead.

But Truex made his way into clean air, and over the last 10 laps, began to again move away for the victory.

“We just had a good balance,” Truex said. “The car would do what I wanted it to do. I just had to manage those long runs. It was really loose that last run. I was nervous when the 5 (Larson) was catching us. We got mired in some traffic there, and that’s always tough.”

Larson held on to finish in second after making his late charge on fresh tires.

“I was surprised that I was able to get to him,” Larson said. “I caught him really, like, I closed on pit road and then I caught him pretty quickly once we were on track. I closed right in, and actually had an opportunity to get by him in the middle of (turns) 1 and 2, but I thought I’d stay patient and maybe get him to use his stuff up. He was just a little bit better than I was in the long runs. So, just wish maybe I could have taken advantage of that opportunity, but thought it was going to play out a little differently.”

After spinning out of the lead on lap 22, Kyle Busch battled back into contention, finishing in third place at the end of the day.

“I think the biggest thing is just being able to unload fast and consistent and good,” Busch said. “We actually drove up to the lead today on the restart there and got the lead and then had a tire go down. I thought that was the end of our day, but we were able to salvage something out of that without being able to tear up the car worse than we did. Then to be able to get back through the traffic and have good pit stops today. The pit crew did a good job. All around, it was a good day, just lacked a little bit of overall speed to maintain with the 19 (Truex) there on the long runs.”

William Byron came home in fourth, with Denny Hamlin in fifth.

Kevin Harvick, Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher and Ryan Newman rounded out the top 10.

Darlington is billed as a track that is “Too Tough To Tame”, and it lived up to it’s billing for a trio of drivers who all saw their days end with hard contact to the inside wall in separate incidents.

The first occurred just seven laps in, when Aric Almirola’s No. 10 Ford spun off of turn two, hitting the inside wall hard on the backstretch.

The second occurred on lap 98, when contact from the Anthony Alfredo sent Cole Custer’s Ford slamming head-on into the inside wall on the backstretch. The impact was hard enough that it lifted the No. 41 Ford into the air on two wheels. Custer was unhurt, but the incident ended his day.

The third occurred just nine laps later, as Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace were fighting for the final position to get onto the lead lap. Busch’s car spun down into the inside wall, knocking an oil line off, resulting in a fire under his No. 1 Chevrolet. He stopped the car quickly and exited uninjured.

“I was racing hard and there’s no give and take,” Busch said. “Guy’s running for the (free pass), you can’t fault him for that. But you still have to race the track and the give the room to the lead lap guys. But man, just got ran into, got taken out and we’re on this end of it. It’s been too many times. It’s been a rough year and this just adds to it.”

In all, Sunday’s race was slowed six times under caution, with two of those being for the end of segments. The final 100 laps of the race ran caution free.

NASCAR Cup Series
Darlington Raceway – Darlington, SC
Goodyear 400 – May 9, 2021

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2. (14) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 293.
3. (3) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 293.
4. (5) William Byron, Chevrolet, 293.
5. (7) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 293.
6. (2) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 293.
7. (6) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 293.
8. (16) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 293.
9. (11) Chris Buescher, Ford, 293.
10. (20) Ryan Newman, Ford, 292.
11. (22) Chase Briscoe #, Ford, 292.
12. (10) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, 292.
13. (12) Joey Logano, Ford, 292.
14. (21) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 292.
15. (18) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 291.
16. (9) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 291.
17. (19) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 291.
18. (26) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 291.
19. (8) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 290.
20. (28) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 290.
21. (23) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 290.
22. (30) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 290.
23. (15) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 290.
24. (1) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 290.
25. (29) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet, 290.
26. (25) Anthony Alfredo #, Ford, 289.
27. (13) Michael McDowell, Ford, 288.
28. (31) Justin Haley(I), Chevrolet, 288.
29. (34) J.J. Yeley(i), Chevrolet, 286.
30. (35) Quin Houff, Chevrolet, 286.
31. (36) James Davison, Chevrolet, 286.
32. (32) B.J. McLeod(i), Ford, 285.
33. (37) Josh Bilicki, Ford, 245.
34. (33) Cody Ware(i), Chevrolet, Driveshaft, 188.
35. (17) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, Accident, 106.
36. (24) Cole Custer, Ford, Accident, 97.
37. (27) Aric Almirola, Ford, Accident, 5.

Average Speed of Race Winner: 123.562 mph.

Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 14 Mins, 21 Secs. Margin of Victory: 2.571 Seconds.

Caution Flags: 6 for 36 laps.

Lead Changes: 19 among 10 drivers.

Lap Leaders: B. Keselowski 1-4;K. Harvick 5-13;K. Busch 14-21;M. Truex Jr. 22-24;T. Reddick 25;C. Ware(i) 26;M. Truex Jr. 27-60;T. Reddick 61;R. Chastain 62-71;M. Truex Jr. 72-92;D. Hamlin 93;M. Truex Jr. 94-110;D. Hamlin 111-114;M. Truex Jr. 115-144;C. Buescher 145;K. Harvick 146;C. Bell 147-149;M. Truex Jr. 150-187;K. Busch 188;M. Truex Jr. 189-293.

Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Martin Truex Jr. 7 times for 248 laps; Kevin Harvick 2 times for 10 laps; Ross Chastain 1 time for 10 laps; Kyle Busch 2 times for 9 laps; Denny Hamlin 2 times for 5 laps; Brad Keselowski 1 time for 4 laps; Christopher Bell 1 time for 3 laps; Tyler Reddick 2 times for 2 laps; Cody Ware(i) 1 time for 1 lap; Chris Buescher 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 19,11,8,5,4,22,12,9,24,48

Stage #2 Top Ten: 19,18,24,11,5,20,22,8,12,17

Playoff Standings: 1. Martin Truex, Jr. – 454 (3 Wins); 2. William Byron – 428 (1 Win); 3. Joey Logano – 406 (1 Win); 4. Ryan Blaney – 405 (1 Win); 5. Kyle Larson – 385 (1 Win); 6. Brad Keselowski – 379 (1 Win); 7. Kyle Busch – 373 (1 Win); 8. Christopher Bell – 320 (1 Win); 9. Alex Bowman – 281 (1 Win); 10. Michael McDowell – 278 (1 Win); 11. Denny Hamlin – 529 (Points Leader); 12. Kevin Harvick – 385; 13. Chase Elliott – 382; 14. Austin Dillon – 316; 15. Chris Buescher – 287; 16. Tyler Reddick – 268.