Martin Truex Jr. Wins Championship with Homestead Victory

Martin Truex Jr. won the Ford 400 on Sunday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Championship.

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Truex led 78 laps on Sunday, but was not the dominant car throughout the race.  A late caution ruined Kyle Busch’s pit strategy, and that allowed Truex to take the lead for good.  He was able to hold Busch off in the closing laps to win his eighth race of the season.

Truex said he was sure Busch would pass him in the closing laps.

“At 20 to go, I thought I was done,” Truex said.  “I found a line that I could use.  I found a lane that was blocking enough of the air that they couldn’t really use it.”

Truex, the regular season champion, dominated on the track all season, but had to persevere through struggles off the track; Truex’s longtime girlfriend Sherry Pollex has been battling cancer, a crew member passed away before the Kansas race, and team owner Barney Vissar suffered a heart attack two weeks ago.

Throughout all the struggles, Truex and his team never gave up.

“A lot of it was for her, a lot of it was for me, a lot of it was for this team,” Truex said.  “I was a wreck just thinking about all the rough days, the bad days, the times where I thought my career was over with.  The times when I didn’t think anyone believed in me…but the people who mattered did.”

“I’ve been wanting this since I was a kid racing go-karts.  I never thought this day would come.”

Busch had the fastest car all day, but he was caught off-sequence from the other leaders when a caution affected their pit strategy.

Busch said he believed he could have beaten Truex if he had more time.

“Just unfortunate for us that that caution came out and kind of ruined our race strategy,” Busch said.  “We weren’t able to get back to where we needed to be.”

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“They deserved it on probably every other race but today; I thought we were better…but they were out front when it mattered most.  Congratulations to the 78.”

The race was also the final Cup Series race in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s career.  Earnhardt finished 25th on Sunday, but he said he hoped his fans enjoyed his final season.

“I hope all the fans enjoyed this season,” Earnhardt said.  “I know it’s not everything we wanted on the racetrack, but we sure had fun off of it.”

“Sure going to miss everybody, but we’ll be back.  We’ll be back at the racetrack a little bit with our Xfinity stuff next year…we’ll be around.  We definitely want to be a part of this sport no matter what.”

Unofficial results:

1. Martin Truex Jr.

2. Kyle Busch

3. Kyle Larson

4. Kevin Harvick

5. Chase Elliott

6. Joey Logano

7. Brad Keselowski

8. Matt Kenseth

9. Denny Hamlin

10. Ryan Newman

11. Austin Dillon

12. Clint Bowyer

13. Jamie McMurray

14. AJ Allmendinger

15. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

16. Paul Menard

17. David Ragan

18. Aric Almirola

19. Trevor Bayne

20. Chris Buescher

21. Erik Jones

22. Kurt Busch

23. Landon Cassill

24. Michael McDowell

25. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

26. Ty Dillon

27. Jimmie Johnson

28. Cole Whitt

29. Ryan Blaney

30. Matt DiBenedetto

31. Corey LaJoie

32. Jeffrey Earnhardt

33. Kasey Kahne

34. Daniel Suarez

35. Reed Sorenson

36. David Starr

37. Danica Patrick

38. Ray Black Jr.

39. Joey Gase

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