NASCAR: Martin Truex Jr. wins Cup race in Loudon

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Martin Truex Jr. won the rained out Crayon 301 NASCAR Cup race in Loudon, NH Monday in his #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Truex led the most laps (254 of 301) in holding off the hard charging Penske Ford of Joey Logano for the win at the Magic-Mile.

Logano tried running high, running low, but Truex had enough to hold him off at the line by 0.394 seconds.

Truex had to survive several late restarts to take his first Cup win in New Hampshire and 34th career Cup win.

Starting 2nd, Truex was so dominant, he won all three stages.

Kyle Larson was third in the #5 Hendrick Chevy, 1.5 seconds behind.

Kevin Harvick brought the #4 SHR Ford home 4th while Brad Kesolowski rounded out the top-5.

Kyle Busch crashed out in Stage 1 after damage sustained by contacting the wall in Stage One.

We knew you were struggling, but it was weird to us. Was there something on the track?

“No, I’ve been lacking right-rear grip the whole time we’ve been here. Just couldn’t get the right-rear feel in the racetrack.

“You’re just going along, trying to keep it under you as much as you can. It was getting late in the run, and I was trying a different line, and it was just too high.

“I didn’t like to be that high on entry. I couldn’t give it [steering] wheel and have the right-rear stick with the lateral grip that you need.

“Hate it for our No. 8 Lenovo Chevy team. Our Chevy stuff was a little off this week, at least for us anyways. We’ll get back to it at Pocono (Raceway).”

Asked if there was a track on the schedule where he wanted to win more than New Hampshire, Truex smiled and said, “I don’t think so.” His previous best finish was third – three times. Five times he’d led more than 100 laps, including last year when he led a race-high 172 laps, only to finish fourth.

“What we’ve been able to do here over the years was pretty remarkable, and to not win was really getting frustrating,” Truex said. “[Crew chief] James [Small] and I have talked about it many times and talked with [teammate] Christopher [Bell] before the race, and he said, ‘You’ve led more laps here than I’ve even run here in the Cup Series.

“Just really awesome job by everybody. What a race car we had here today. Just proud of the whole team. Pit stops were flawless. The car was unbelievable. We had some challenges throughout the race, and the car was a handful at times, but we put our heads down and just kept digging.”

“We were fortunate we had fresher tires than most and were able to stay out and get most of that back,” Harvick said. “We’ve just got to be able to do what we need to do when it counts.

23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick finished sixth, followed by Truex’s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin. 23XI’s Bubba Wallace, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon and SHR driver Chase Briscoe rounded out the top 10.

Byron, who led nine laps, finished 24th.

His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, who is still trying to claim a 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff position after missing six races this season, struggled much of the day. Elliott conceded after qualifying that he was not particularly optimistic about his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet this weekend.

Still, he rallied to a 12th-place finish and remains ranked 23rd – now only 60 points out of 16th place in the standings, with the top 16 drivers transferring to the 10-race championship round that starts in September.

Winner Quotes – Martin Truex Jr.

After three third-place finishes here at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. is finally winner here in New Hampshire. This one will be celebrated by the entire Truex family. Martin, is there a win you wanted more than this one?

MARTIN TRUEX JR: I don’t think so. What we’ve been able to do here over the years is pretty remarkable, and to not win was really getting frustrating.

James and I talked about it many times. We thought about it all weekend, talked about it with Christopher before the race. He’s like, man, you’ve led more laps here than I’ve even raced in Cup.

Just really an awesome job by everybody. What a race car we had today. Just proud of the whole team. Pit stops were flawless. Race car was unbelievable.

We had some challenges at times throughout the race and it was a handful at times, but we just kept our heads down, kept digging. Thanks to everybody at racers, Bass Pro, Auto Owners, Toyota TRD, everybody back at the shop, JGR, all our fans, Oakley, FlightSafety, just all the people that help us.

This is feeling really, really good to do what we did today and finally cap it off with a lobster.

Do you remember being an eight year old and sitting in those stands watching your dad race at this place? How much significance does that add to this for the Truex family?

MARTIN TRUEX JR: It’s a lot. That’s a big part of it. I sat in Turn 1 with my mom. My little brother was drinking out of a bottle, so it was — we were young, 12, 13, maybe 14, whatever.

But this is the first big track I ever came to with my dad and watched and the first time I ever seen Cup cars in person and Busch cars in person. It’s been a special place for us.

Being able to win K&N, being able to win the Busch Series, this one has been eluding me for a long, long time, so I’m just really, really happy, really thankful, and I can’t say enough about my team, man. They’re incredible. I’m lucky I get to drive these things.

What were you thinking on those final few restarts? Cautions kept coming out and you had it in hand.

MARTIN TRUEX JR: Stop wrecking, everybody just stop wrecking. Yeah, luckily we were able to hold them off. The car was just so fast. I don’t know, I don’t even know what to say. I’m speechless. Been after this one a long time. This one is sweet.

2nd Place Quotes – Joey Logano

Q. It was hard for anybody to keep up with the 19 today but Joey Logano had the best shot at it. What were you fighting at the end, Joey?

JOEY LOGANO: I thought I would have had something. Right before that caution came out two cautions to the end when we had tires on it seemed like the 19 took a few laps to get going. I was running him down, I was like man, I’ve got a chance here.

That caution came out right when I was thinking I could make a move on the outside into 3.

And then it seemed like the cycles helped him get his pressures up to where he can refire and be pretty quick the last couple restarts.

Dangit, the home track, there’s no place you want to win more than this, so it stings to not get the Shell-Pennzoil Ford into Victory Lane. But gosh, second just sucks sometimes, you know. It stings the most when you’re that close and feeling like you had a shot at it. Still a good day for us.

Q. Six races to go now until the playoffs. It seems like you’re going in the right direction as far as pace goes with the 22 car.

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, directionally that was good, we tried a lot of new things today. We weren’t good here last year, so we tried a lot of different things. Some things better, some things not, but overall kind of can hang in the Top 5 all day and have a shot at the win.

Still a lot of work to do to be the favorite at the moment, but we’re making the right steps right now.

Race Results

POS	CAR	DRIVER	MANUF	BEHIND	LAPS
1	19	Martin Truex Jr.		0.000	301
2	22	Joey Logano		0.394	301
3	5	Kyle Larson		1.509	301
4	4	Kevin Harvick		2.118	301
5	6	Brad Keselowski		2.623	301
6	45	Tyler Reddick		4.541	301
7	11	Denny Hamlin		4.792	301
8	23	Bubba Wallace		5.747	301
9	3	Austin Dillon		6.244	301
10	14	Chase Briscoe		6.607	301
11	43	Erik Jones		7.127	301
12	9	Chase Elliott		7.202	301
13	34	Michael McDowell		7.883	301
14	48	Alex Bowman		8.471	301
15	17	Chris Buescher		8.775	301
16	99	Daniel Suarez		8.787	301
17	31	Justin Haley		9.251	301
18	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		9.650	301
19	16	AJ Allmendinger		9.857	301
20	21	Harrison Burton		10.223	301
21	38	Todd Gilliland		10.451	301
22	12	Ryan Blaney		10.868	301
23	1	Ross Chastain		11.138	301
24	24	William Byron		11.379	301
25	2	Austin Cindric		11.574	301
26	77	Ty Dillon		12.472	301
27	54	Ty Gibbs #		12.874	301
28	41	Ryan Preece		-1	300
29	20	Christopher Bell		-2	299
30	15	Ryan Newman		-2	299
31	78	BJ McLeod		-6	295
32	42	Noah Gragson #		-33	268
33	7	Corey LaJoie		-125	176
34	10	Aric Almirola		-133	168
35	51	Cole Custer(i)		-171	130
36	8	Kyle Busch		-230	71

# DENOTES ROOKIE
(i) NOT ELIGIBLE FOR POINTS
(*) REQUIRED TO QUALIFY ON TIME