Martin Truex Jr. Returns to Victory Lane in Pocono

Originally written for CLNS Radio.

Martin Truex Jr. won the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 from Pocono Raceway on Sunday afternoon.

Photo courtesy Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

Truex returned to victory lane for the first time since a win at Sonoma on June 23, 2013.

“It feels unbelievable,” Truex said in victory lane.

The victory was the culmination of an early season of strong runs, including a stretch over the last four races where he led over 450 laps.  The win locked Truex into the Chase for the Sprint Cup after running second in points for most of the season.  Truex said it was a testament to the determination of his team.

“I can’t thank all these guys enough on the Furniture Row Chevrolet, what a great group of guys.  I knew we were 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.”

Truex’s return to victory lane is made even more special by the personal and professional struggles he has gone through the past two years.  Truex left Michael Waltrip Racing following the 2013 season after a Chase scandal caused NAPA to pull sponsorship, and last year his longtime girlfriend Sherry Pollex was diagnosed with cancer.

“I feel like I’m on cloud 9 right now, just awesome.  Last year and a half’s been tough, but this feels pretty dang good.”

The win was a popular one in the garage, with many drivers offering Truex praise on pit road following the race, and some heading to victory lane to congratulate Truex on his win.

“I’m really happy for Martin, I know he went through a lot,” runner-up Kevin Harvick said after the race.  “If you’re going to lose to somebody today, that’s a great person to lose to.”

Unofficial results:

1. Martin Truex Jr.

2. Kevin Harvick

3. Jimmie Johnson

4. Joey Logano

5. Kurt Busch

6. Matt Kenseth

7. Jamie McMurray

8. Kyle Larson

9. Kyle Busch

10. Denny Hamlin

11. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

12. Greg Biffle

13. Kasey Kahne

14. Jeff Gordon

15. Carl Edwards

16. Casey Mears

17. Brad Keselowski

18. Ty Dillon

19. Austin Dillon

20. Justin Allgaier

21. Tony Stewart

22. Clint Bowyer

23. David Ragan

24. Trevor Bayne

25. Landon Cassill

26. Alex Bowman

27. David Gilliland

28. Cole Whitt

29. Josh Wise

30. Brett Moffitt

31. Paul Menard

32. Matt DiBenedetto

33. Jeb Burton

34. Michael Annett

35. Travis Kvapil

36. J.J. Yeley

37. Danica Patrick

38. AJ Allmendinger

39. Ryan Newman

40. Brendan Gaughan

41. Sam Hornish Jr.

42. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

43. Aric Almirola

Photo courtesy Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

Edwards Wins Coca-Cola 600

Originally written for CLNS Radio.

Carl Edwards won the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday night.

Edwards won after stretching his fuel mileage to the limit late in the race.  Edwards said it was his crew chief Darian Grubb who got him to victory lane.

 

Photo courtesy Adam Neimeyer

“Darian does such a good job, and ever since Tony [Stewart] and I battled for that championship, I’ve wanted to work with him,” Edwards said.  “That’s what he does on the box, he takes a mediocre day like that and he puts us in a good position.”

Edwards, who moved from Roush-Fenway Racing to Joe Gibbs Racing in the offseason, picked up his first victory for JGR.  Edwards said he hopes this victory is the first of many.

“I was the slowest of the group tonight, and I just had the best guys on pit road,” Edwards said.  “Hopefully all that bad luck we’ve had is equaled out by the good luck today.”

Martin Truex Jr. had the strongest car of the night, leading 131 of 400 laps.  Truex had to pit late in the race for fuel, and ended up finishing fifth when the leaders didn’t run out of gas.  Truex said his team is on the right track and just needs some luck to get to victory lane.

“I don’t know what to do about fuel mileage races,” Truex said.  “I’ve never…come out on the right end of them.”

“We just got to keep plugging away and sooner or later we’re going to get a little bit of luck on our side.  It hurts to come home fifth and lead that many laps, but at the same time, it’s pretty awesome to run like that too.”

Unofficial results:

1. Carl Edwards

2. Greg Biffle

3. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

4. Matt Kenseth

5. Martin Truex Jr.

6. Ryan Newman

7. Brad Keselowski

8. Denny Hamlin

9. Kevin Harvick

10. Kurt Busch

11. Kyle Busch

12. Kasey Kahne

13. Joey Logano

14. Paul Menard

15. Jeff Gordon

16. Austin Dillon

17. Aric Almirola

18. Chase Elliott

19. Jamie McMurray

20. Clint Bowyer

21. Tony Stewart

22. Danica Patrick

23. Casey Mears

24. Sam Hornish Jr.

25. Kyle Larson

26. Alex Bowman

27. Trevor Bayne

28. Cole Whitt

29. AJ Allmendinger

30. Michael McDowell

31. Brett Moffitt

32. Michael Annett

33. David Gilliland

34. Matt DiBenedetto

35. Josh Wise

36. Alex Kennedy

37. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

38. J.J. Yeley

39. Landon Cassill

40. Jimmie Johnson

41. David Ragan

42. Ryan Blaney

43. Justin Allgaier

Photo courtesy Jerry Markland/Getty Images

Shoutout to Adam Niemeyer for the picture of Carl Edwards at the top of the post.  For more work from him, check out his blog.

Montoya Wins Indianapolis 500

Originally written for CLNS Radio.

Juan Pablo Montoya won the 99th Indianapolis 500 on Sunday afternoon.

Montoya picked up his second career Indianapolis 500 victory 15 years after winning his first.  Montoya said the victory was a big one.

“This is too much, it’s pretty unbelievable,” Montoya said.  “That was awesome.”

 

Photo courtesy Andrew Weber/USA Today

Montoya was running in the back of the pack early in the race, and had to fight his way back to the front.  At one point, Montoya was as low as 30th after having to make multiple pit stops under the first caution to replace a rear right wing.

“This Chevy was good all day,” Montoya said.  “Team Penske did an amazing job.  When we came through the field we had a really good car.”

Montoya raced hard with Scott Dixon and teammate Will Power over the final 15 laps.  Montoya made the final pass for the lead with a daring move on Power with three laps to go.

“That fight at the end was hard,” Montoya said.  “This is what racing and IndyCar is all about.  It’s awesome racing all the way down to the wire.”

“It’s pretty awesome.”

Unofficial results:

1. Juan Pablo Montoya

2. Will Power

3. Charlie Kimball

4. Scott Dixon

5. Graham Rahall

6. Marco Andretti

7. Helio Castroneves

8. JR Hildebrand

9. Josef Newgarden

10. Simon Pagenaud

11. Sebastien Bourdais

12. Ryan Briscoe

13. Takuma Sato

14. Townsend Bell

15. Ryan Hunter-Reay

16. Gabby Chaves

17. Alex Tagliani

18. James Jakes

19. Simona de Silvestro

20. Carlos Munoz

21. Justin Wilson

22. Pippa Mann

23. Sebastian Saavedra

24. Jack Hawksworth

25. Stefano Coletti

26. Tony Kanaan

27. James Davison

28. Tristan Vautier

29. Oriol Servia

30. Ed Carpenter

31. Bryan Clauson

32. Sage Karam

33. Conor Daly

Review: NASCAR '15

NASCAR '15, the newest NASCAR video game, was released on Friday exclusively at Gamestop. 

The game, released by developer Dusenberry Martin Racing, is a standalone update to NASCAR '14, which was released last year by Eutechnyx.  Because the game was developed by two separate publishers, NASCAR '15 is an update to that game rather than a completely new experience.  That will come with next year's NASCAR '16, which is being built from the ground up for PS4 and Xbox One.

I picked up my copy today and played through all of the modes.  So, does NASCAR '15 head to victory lane, or does it run in the back of the pack, mired by the shortfalls of its predecessor?  Let's find out.

Single Player
First up, the single player modes are exactly the same as last year's game.  You pick your driver, your track and the difficulty settings before hitting the track.  This mode is pretty straightforward, and it is done fairly well.  I didn't have any problems during a 40-lap event at Charlotte on 70% difficulty.  I started from the back of the pack and quickly worked my way to the lead.

The campaign mode is also the same as last year.  I raced through the beginning test session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and then headed to Daytona for the Daytona 500.

As I raced on the low line around the track, it seemed as though my car was sucked down to the yellow line, and I couldn't seem to stop myself from bouncing off the apron, which is always a disaster at Daytona.  After wrecking in my Duel, I started the Daytona 500 10th, and ran in the lead for most of the race as I held off challenges from Joey Logano and Jeff Gordon.

One thing I would have liked to see was the ability to create a career paint scheme in career mode.  It is a little frustrating to have to go back to the paint booth to add a new sponsor logo.

Multiplayer
Ever since NASCAR: The Game 2011, multiplayer has never been a strong suit for the games.  Online multiplayer has always been unreliable at best.  I was hoping for something different this year, but I was disappointed.  In fact, I couldn't actually get to an online race at all.  It just kept coming up with the message "a suitable game could not be found."  Ok.

This was how the race ended. Yep, me and the cover athlete.

The local multiplayer has always been a favorite mode for me, as I'll play it with my friends and cause the biggest wrecks we could.  Unfortunately, NASCAR '14 would freeze in this mode when a big enough wreck was caused.  Fortunately, NASCAR '15 doesn't freeze when you create a huge wreck. It's actually worse.

When the race started, I turned around and waited for the field to come out of Turn 4.  I hit them dead-on, causing a major pileup with cars flying through the air.  The red flag came out for Brian Vickers stuck on his roof, but the game kept going. 

When the race was set to go back green, I somehow gained control of my car going through Turn 3, and then the race went back to the red flag because Vickers was still stuck on his roof.  I was also the leader for some reason, even though I should have been scored 42nd, 1 lap down. That's some lucky dog.

When the race went back green again, I turned around to cause a wreck again.  It was lap 6 of 16, which will be important in a minute.  After I caused the wreck again, Paul Menard crossed the start/finish line and it listed him as the winner. On lap 6. What?

I caused a wreck on the next restart, and again, it listed Kasey Kahne as the winner. On lap 8.

Finally the race restarted again, and for some reason there were only two cars on the track: myself and Jeff Gordon.  I got into Gordon going around the corner, which sent him into the wall, and I won the race on lap 10.  For real this time.

Overall, the multiplayer experience wasn't as broken as last year's, but it's still pretty broken.

Decision
NASCAR '15 isn't a bad game, but it is very clear that it is *just* an update.  In fact, every driver only has one paint scheme in the game, which I expect will get rectified with some DLC down the road.  The game fixes some of the things NASCAR '14 did wrong, but it also creates some fun new problems.  But for only $19.99, it could be worse.  If you're looking for an updated game with your favorite driver's scheme from this season, head to Gamestop to pick it up.  I'll keep playing it, hoping they can get it right next year.

6.5/10

Weekly Pull List: 5/20/2015

All the comics available this week can be found on Comixology, and any breaking comics news is on Comic Book Resources.

Marvel
Daredevil #15.1
Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #1
Guardians of the Galaxy #27
Loki: Agent of Asgard #14
Moon Knight #15
Planet Hulk #1
Powers #3
Secret Wars: Battleworld #1
Spider-Verse #1
Star Wars #5
Ultimate End #1
Uncanny X-Men #34
Wolverines #19