Martin Truex Jr. cruises to Martinsville win for his first victory of 2020
Martin Truex Jr. has gone back-to-back at Martinsville.
Truex rebounded from an early pit penalty to drive away from Ryan Blaney and everyone else over the final 100 laps of Wednesday night’s race to get his first win of 2020.
Truex won at Martinsville in the fall of 2019 to secure a chance to race for the championship in the final race of the season. It was the third Cup Series win at a short track in Truex Jr.’s career.
Wednesday night, Truex was unstoppable over the race’s final 20 percent. Some damage earlier in the race forced his team to cut part of the right front fender off the car but it didn’t slow Truex down at all. He picked his way through lapped traffic over the final 100 green-flag laps and he beat Blaney to the line by over four seconds.
The win is Truex’s first of the season and also the first for crew chief James Small. He replaced Cole Pearn as Truex’s crew chief as Pearn suddenly called it quits on NASCAR at the end of the 2019 season.
Pearn has been a huge part of Truex’s recent success. Truex has gotten 24 of his 27 victories with Pearn and those 24 wins all came from 2015-19.
Truex’s early-race pit penalty was a commitment line violation. As he dove to pit road from the lead on lap 115 he didn’t get to the pit road commitment line soon enough and had to start at the back of the field.
Penske goes 2-3-4
Truex was the only driver at Joe Gibbs Racing who had a good night. His three teammates struggled mightily. Kyle Busch finished 19th, Erik Jones was 20th and Denny Hamlin was an inexplicable 24th.
While JGR struggled outside of Truex, every Team Penske driver had a great night. All three Penske drivers finished in a row behind Truex. Blaney was followed by Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski.
Blaney had one of the race’s fastest cars. He started first, fell a lap down early in the race, got his lap back, drove all the way back up to first and then seemed poised to contend for the win. But a pit penalty during a stop when a caution came out with 175 laps to go put Blaney in the back of the pack.
He drove his way to second but was three seconds back of Truex when he passed Keselowski with 44 laps to go.
Bubba Wallace finishes 11th
Bubba Wallace almost got a top 10 on Wednesday night. The most outspoken NASCAR driver over the last 10 days finished 11th after he was edged out by Jimmie Johnson at the finish line.
Wallace was mired in 15th for much of the final segment of the race. But he moved his way toward the top 10 at the end and had a car that was in the top half of the field the entire night.
“Our Black Lives Matter Chevrolet — that’s so good to say — was so good on the long runs,” Wallace said. “So we definitely didn’t need those cautions toward the end of the race.”
Wallace — the only black driver who races full-time in NASCAR — drove a car supporting Black Lives Matter on Wednesday. The car raced hours after NASCAR said it would prohibit fans from displaying the Confederate flag at races going forward.
Wallace had called for NASCAR to ban the flag in an interview with CNN on Monday night.
Austin Dillon forced to quit race
Austin Dillon had to be helped from his car and was taken to the infield care center during the race’s final caution of the night with approximately 100 laps to go.
A problem on Dillon’s car in the opening handful of laps knocked the crush panels out of it and Dillon drove much of the 500-lap race with fumes coming into a hot cockpit.
According to his wife Whitney, he was alert when taken to the care center. He was released shortly after the race.
.@austindillon3 has been treated and released from the infield care center.
— RCR Cup Teams (@RCRCup) June 11, 2020
Dillon finished 37th because the team didn’t have a backup driver on standby. NASCAR has restricted the number of people who can enter tracks on race days because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Full results
1. Martin Truex Jr.
2. Ryan Blaney
3. Brad Keselowski
4. Joey Logano
5. Chase Elliott
6. Alex Bowman
7. Matt DiBenedetto
8. William Byron
9. Kurt Busch
10. Jimmie Johnson
11. Bubba Wallace
12. Ryan Newman
13. Chris Buescher
14. Michael McDowell
15. Kevin Harvick
16. Tyler Reddick
17. Clint Bowyer
18. Corey LaJoie
19. Kyle Busch
20. Erik Jones
21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
22. Ty Dillon
23. Matt Kenseth
24. Denny Hamlin
25. John Hunter Nemechek
26. Ryan Preece
27. Daniel Suarez
28. Christopher Bell
29. Cole Custer
30. Brennan Poole
31. JJ Yeley
32. David Starr
33. Aric Almirola
34. Quin Houff
35. Joey Gase
36. Garrett Smithley
37. Austin Dillon
38. Reed Sorenson
39. Timmy Hill
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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