MARTINSVILLE, Va. – One year ago at Martinsville Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. lost the battle after a final-lap, final-corner scuffle with playoff rival Joey Logano.
However, at the end of Sunday’s First Data 500, Truex both won the battle and gave himself another shot at winning the war.
In a performance even more dominant than Brad Keselowski’s spring victory at the .526-mile paper clip, Truex led a staggering 464 of 500 laps en route to his first win at Martinsville and the 26th of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career.
After an early debris caution led to pit stops, Truex beat polesitter Denny Hamlin off pit road to gain control of the race at lap 31 and never gave up his stranglehold after that.
Aside from laps 254 through 259, when Kyle Larson stayed out under caution to try and steal the win in the second stage, Truex led the rest of the way for his seventh trip to victory lane this season.
“I can’t believe we just won Martinsville, man. Miami is awesome, but we’ve wanted to win here for a long time,” said Truex, who swept both stages and the race for a perfect 60-point haul, but more importantly guaranteed himself a berth in the Championship 4.
“I used to just be terrible here, and today we just dominated the dang thing. I don’t think anyone expected that,” Truex added. “(At) this racetrack in general, you don’t see that. Hats off to my guys. Our pit crew was stellar today, and we didn’t make many adjustments. We adjusted on it early and it came to life.
“That was a lot of fun. Maybe now I’ve got this place figured out, who knows?”
Though Truex’s performance may have appeared easy just by looking at the box score, he had to hold a hard-charging William Byron at bay in the final laps.
After three cautions in the final 52 laps bunched the field up and gave Byron a fighting chance, the 21-year-old Charlotte, N.C., native stayed within a half second of Truex’s No. 19 Auto Owner’s Insurance Toyota Camry for the duration of the final run – a 24-lap sprint set up by a crash between Michael McDowell and Daniel Hemric in turn four on lap 472.
However, Truex knew that a win meant both a guaranteed trip to Miami and a little redemption for his loss in the same race 12 months earlier, even if he didn’t see as much of the latter in the moments after climbing from his car.
“Man, I don’t know (if this is redemption); that was completely unrelated to today in my opinion,” Truex noted. “We were just able to do all the right things. I didn’t feel great about our car after practice, but we made a lot of changes on it. … I’m just proud to win here. This is a big, big race for anyone in this sport. A grandfather clock coming home with me, baby. I never would have thought it.
“I’m a lucky guy to drive for these (Joe Gibbs Racing) guys, and hopefully we can spend the next two weeks getting ready to go to Homestead and do this again.”
Byron hung on to second, finishing .373 seconds back of Truex at the checkered flag.
Keselowski followed that pair home in third, with Hamlin and Ryan Blaney filling out the top five.
Kurt Busch was sixth, ahead of Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and Ryan Newman.
Logano and Hamlin ended up in a heated discussion after the race that devolved into a fight between both drivers and a majority of their crews on pit road, though all parties walked away from the melee.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs continue on Nov. 3 at Texas Motor Speedway, where Harvick is the defending race winner.
To view complete race results, advance to the next page.