Sunday, October 8, 2017

Truex Continues to Dominate, Wins at Charlotte

Originally written for CLNS Media.


Martin Truex Jr. won the Bank of America 500 from Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon for his sixth victory of the season.

Truex led 91 laps on Sunday on his way to victory lane, but had to hold off Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick in the closing laps after two late cautions set up an overtime finish.

Truex said his team came through in the clutch with fast pit stops at the end of the race.

Mike Comer/Getty Images
“Everybody on this team is amazing,” Truex said.  “The pit crew was flawless; got us track position and we were able to keep it.”

Final practice was cancelled on Saturday due to rain, so teams had very little on-track time to prepare for Sunday’s race.  After qualifying 17th, Truex and crew chief Cole Pearn had no following track time to work on their car.

Truex said he and his crew chief did a good job working on the car to prepare it for Sunday.

“It’s one of those weekends with a lot of pressure,” Truex said.  “We qualified poorly, and I was mad about it and Cole was mad about it.”

“This time of year you want to click on all cylinders, and today we did.  We just did everything right with no mistakes.  We just never gave up on it, and we just kept digging.”

Harvick finished third after challenging late for the lead, but he couldn’t catch Truex on the final restart.

Harvick said his car was good, but that he couldn’t compete with how fast Truex was.

“It’s about where we were going to run, second or third,” Harvick said.  “I would get close and then I would get loose…kind of lost what I had at the beginning of the race.”

Unofficial results:
1. Martin Truex Jr.
2. Chase Elliott
3. Kevin Harvick
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Jamie McMurray
6. Daniel Suarez
7. Jimmie Johnson
8. Ryan Blaney
9. Kasey Kahne
10. Kyle Larson
11. Matt Kenseth
12. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
13. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
14. Trevor Bayne
15. Brad Keselowski
16. Austin Dillon
17. Erik Jones
18. Chris Buescher
19. Paul Menard
20. AJ Allmendinger
21. Ty Dillon
22. Kurt Busch
23. Matt DiBenedetto
24. Aric Almirola
25. Landon Cassill
26. Joey Logano
27. Clint Bowyer
28. Corey LaJoie
29. Kyle Busch
30. Jeffrey Earnhardt
31. Reed Sorenson
32. BJ McLeod
33. Timmy Hill
34. Cole Whitt
35. Michael McDowell
36. Gray Gaulding
37. David Ragan
38. Danica Patrick
39. Brett Moffitt
40. Ryan Newman

Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

No comments:

Post a Comment