Martin Truex Jr. wins at Pocono
Martin Truex Jr. has his win in 2015.
The driver of the No. 78 won for the first time in nearly two years on Sunday at Pocono. And boy, have those been an eventful two years.
Truex’s second career win came at Sonoma in 2013 while driving for Michael Waltrip Racing. The win put him in position to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup at Richmond, the final race of the regular season. However, MWR had Clint Bowyer spin intentionally and Brian Vickers slow down considerably to keep Truex in the Chase during that Richmond race.
Truex unofficially made the Chase after that night. But a couple days later he was kicked out by NASCAR via points penalties.
NAPA, the sponsor of his car, left Michael Waltrip Racing after debating its role with the team. Without a sponsor, Truex’s team was reduced to a part-time capacity. MWR gave him permission to look elsewhere for a ride.
Furniture Row had an opening after Kurt Busch said he was moving to Stewart-Haas Racing. It was sort of an arranged marriage. FRR was the only realistic team with an opening. Truex was the only established driver looking for a ride.
The partnership acted like an arranged marriage in 2014. Truex flat struggled. Anything that could go wrong went wrong it seemed, and even when it didn’t, the car didn’t have speed in the first half of the year. And in the summer, Sherry Pollex, Truex’s longtime girlfriend, was diagnosed with cancer.
Everything has gotten better in 2015. Pollex finished the final round of her primary chemotherapy treatments in January. And Truex’s performance on the track has been a complete turnaround.
Sunday’s win was the 10th time he’s finished in the top 10 in 2015. He’s second in the points standings. And his frustration about coming up short over the last few weeks is gone.
Truex led the most laps at Pocono, the fourth straight points race he’s done so. The other three didn’t end up in victory lane. And entering Sunday, no driver had led the most laps in four straight races without a win.
Truex is happy he’s not the first. While the odds of making it to the Chase on points were strongly in his favor, Truex now has some bonus points to start the postseason.
“It feels unbelievable,” Truex said. “… I knew we were going to get one. Everyone kept asking ‘when are you going to win, when are you going to win, when are you going to get one?’ I knew we had the team, I knew we had what it took. Just had to get things to play out the way we needed them to and I feel like I’m on cloud nine right now.”
And by the way, MWR’s drivers haven’t visited victory lane since Truex left.
To get the win on Sunday, Truex has to survive a spate of late-race restarts. But his main competitor, Kevin Harvick, was fighting his gear ratios. His third gear wasn’t conducive for restarts.
“We just couldn’t go on restarts,” Harvick said. “We would lug really bad in third gear and just kind of have to go into defense mode.”
It was Harvick’s eighth second-place finish of the season. As you can imagine, he’s the only driver Truex trails in the points standings.
Jimmie Johnson, the series wins leader in 2015, finished third. Joey Logano was fourth and Kurt Busch finished fifth. Here are the full results.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
