Truex Wins Chase Opener

Originally written for CLNS Radio.

 Martin Truex Jr. won the first race of the Chase on Sunday at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 from Chicagoland Speedway.

Jonathan Daniel (Getty Images)

Truex had to fight rookies Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney late in the race for the lead.  After chasing Elliott down in the closing laps, a spin brought out the caution to send the race into overtime.  After pitting, Truex started behind three cars that stayed out on old tires.  He got by Blaney on the restart, and held onto the lead over the final two laps.

Truex said this victory was exactly how his team wanted to start off the Chase.

“This is how we wanted to start it off; it feels awesome,” Truex said.  “Everybody on this team…gave us everything we need.”

Truex is now locked into the next round of the Chase because of his victory on Sunday.  He said his team will still go out and try to win the next two weeks.

“We have more races to win and we can win some.  At the end of the day, it was a total team effort, and that’s what it’s going to take to win a championship.”

Elliott finished third after leading late in the race.  He said his team just couldn’t overcome restarting fifth on the final restart.

“Feel like we did a good job controlling the things we could control today,” Elliott said.  “There’s some things you just can’t control with the amount of guys that stay out and line up on the restart.  We played the cards we were dealt and we came up short.”

Unofficial results:

1. Martin Truex Jr.

2. Joey Logano

3. Chase Elliott

4. Ryan Blaney

5. Brad Keselowski

6. Denny Hamlin

7. Kasey Kahne

8. Kyle Busch

9. Matt Kenseth

10. Alex Bowman

11. Jamie McMurray

12. Jimmie Johnson

13. Kurt Busch

14. Austin Dillon

15. Carl Edwards

16. Tony Stewart

17. AJ Allmendinger

18. Kyle Larson

19. Ryan Newman

20. Kevin Harvick

21. Paul Menard

22. Clint Bowyer

23. Trevor Bayne

24. Danica Patrick

25. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

26. Greg Biffle

27. Ty Dillon

28. Chris Buescher

29. Landon Cassill

30. Matt DiBenedetto

31. Brian Scott

32. Aric Almirola

33. Michael Annett

34. Casey Mears

35. David Ragan

36. Cole Whitt

37. Michael McDowell

38. Josh Wise

39. Reed Sorenson

40. Joey Gase

Kena Krutsinger (Getty Images)