DARLINGTON, SC – Martin Truex Jr. made his way around Darlington Raceway, sweeping both stages and leading the final 105 laps on Sunday.
Kyle Larson tipped off ‘big lead’ often over the last 30 laps at Truex, coming two car lengths closer on the track. But the Joe Gibbs Racing driver held him back for his third win of the season.
“Hopefully we can keep this going,” said Truex.
The win gave Truex some amortization at Darlington when he was last here last September when he ran 196 laps and still finished 22nd after a late tangle with Chase Elliott for the lead.
This time around, Truex made sure he had no problems by running forward – often with a 10 second lead on the field – and winning “Too Tough To Tame” for the second time on the track.
Truex led 248 of the 293 laps for his 30th career win in the NASCAR Top Series. He is the only driver to have multiple wins in the first 12 races of the year.
In the middle of the first of three stages, he took control, stepped forward on a restart, and got ready for a long drive forward. Truex led the final 21 laps to reach the first stage, then the final 36 as he scored the second stage win by about 14 seconds against his JGR teammate Kyle Busch.
Truex broke out as the race resumed for the final stage and easily managed to do a couple of laps with stops at the green flag to stay ahead.
Larson finished second, Truex ‘teammate Kyle Busch third. William Byron was fourth and Denny Hamlin, who was the leader of the NASCAR points, was fifth.
Kyle Busch followed his first win of the season in Kansas last week with a solid third place in Darlington. It was Busch’s sixth top 10 result in his last seven races. Busch’s only win in Darlington came in 2008.
Kurt Busch seemed on his way to big things in Darlington when he gave the track one of its most iconic moments. In 2003 he finished second here at Ricky Craven in a duel in which he lost 0.002 seconds. But Busch has not come so close to a Darlington victory in 22 races since then. His last start ended in flames after hitting the inside wall and catching fire on the liquid his car spat out. “It’s been a tough year and that only helps,” said the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, who was uninjured in the incident.
There were a handful of NASCAR guests and fans who were allowed to roam the garage area. This marked the first time the sport has been allowed since the coronavirus stopped stock car racing in March 2020. Kevin Harvick won at Darlington last May with no fans at the facility last May. There were around 8,000 fans in the stands. It was about double that on Sunday, and Darlington officials said they would open the stands to anyone who wants to come for the Southern 500 on September 5th.
NASCAR is heading to Dover International Speedway for another triple-header weekend with the Camping World Truck Series and Xfinity Series taking place ahead of the Cup Series racing on the Monster Mile. Kevin Harvick won the Cup Series event there in 2020, part of his nine best wins of the season.
