NASCAR
DOVER Del. – It may have taken until Monday, but Martin Truex Jr. is back in victory lane at The Monster Mile. After enduring a 54-race winless streak, MTJ takes a fourth career win at his home track in Dover. Only adding onto the momentous occasion, it’s a weekend sweep for the Truex brothers. After Ryan Truex earned his first Xfinity win on Saturday, the celebrations are on this week in Mayetta, New Jersey.
While Truex was the ultimate winner after 400 laps, the No. 19 Toyota did not take the lead until lap 332. Dover’s first half was dominated by the No. 24 Chevrolet of William Byron. Going for his third win of 2023, Byron started eighth and found the top spot by lap 27. The 24 would take Stage 1 in convincing fashion, and narrowly lost out on a Stage sweep to Ross Chastain. The No. 1 leapfrogged the 24 by a second under a green flag pit stop cycle. This eventually led to Chastain edging Byron to the second Stage checkers.
One of the many early cautions was at the hands of Ross Chastain. Going into turn one, the 1 got into the back of lapped car Brennan Poole. The No. 15 was sent around and into the path of innocent bystander and prerace favorite Kyle Larson. While the 5 was able to continue, he was laps off the pace after showing great speed early.
After four cautions in Stage 1 alone, Dover quickly turned into a day with long green flag runs. Stage 2 was never slowed by a yellow flag, and Stage 3 mirrored this. After chasing down Chastain and short-pitting him by two laps, Martin Truex Jr. held the lead with just under 70 laps left.
Truex appeared to be on cruise control late, setting sail for his first win since the 2021 Playoffs. The only bump in the road would be caused by Joey Logano. The No. 22 spun with 13 laps left to trigger a late caution.
On pit road, crew chief James Small elected to give Truex only two right side tires. Chastain would line up just behind him with four fresh Goodyears. Despite the pressure, Truex was able to hang on over the seven-lap sprint to the finish. After going winless and missing the Playoffs in 2022, Martin Truex Jr. is victorious again at his home track.
“It feels incredible, you know we feel like we’ve been close a bunch of times,” Truex said. “We gave some away that’s for sure. We thought today ‘Oh an, a late caution, what’s gonna happen here?’ Just a great call by James to take two (tires) and then was able to get a pretty good restart. Got by (Ryan) Blaney there. He raced me hard but clean.”
“Just thanks to everybody that stuck with us, all our fans, Bass Pro Shops, Auto Owner’s, Reser’s, Toyota, TRD, all my personal sponsors. We knew we could do this, we showed it, we led laps, dominated races, it just would never all come together. I kept saying ‘we just gotta keep doing what we’re doing, not overthink it.’ Tough day today with a few pit stops early, and then obviously the guys got it going at the end. Really psyched, happy for everybody, thanks to everyone at JGR, just and awesome job.”
“This is a special place, and it was such a big day for our family to see Ryan win on Saturday. He’s worked so hard for so long to get good opportunities, it was awesome to see him take advantage of that. For us, we’ve given away a few here over the years, it feels nice to get one to come around our way for once. Just excited, this thing was a hot rod, just had to get it up front.”
Behind Truex and Chastain, the Dover top-10 were: Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, and Josh Berry.
From Truex’s Dover victory, next week has a high chance of being another Toyota win at Kansas. The Advent Health 400 will go green Sunday at 3:00 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. 23XI Racing swept both Kansas races in 2022, and head back to the Heartland eyeing another win.
Written by Peter Stratta
Be sure to follow us on Twitter
Be sure to follow the writer on Twitter
Photo Credit to James Gilbert/Getty Images for NASCAR
