NASCAR race results: Martin Truex Jr. wins at Phoenix. Full analysis and takeaways

The unpredictability of NASCAR’s 2021 race winners was finally met with familiarity on Sunday when Martin Truex Jr. won the Instacart 500 at Phoenix. Truex led the final 25 laps of the race, separating himself from second place finisher Joey Logano by 1.7 seconds at the checkered flag.

The victory marks Truex’s 28th career Cup win, and his first victory at Phoenix Raceway. He had the pole position for the spring race in 2018, but finished in fifth.

Truex’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin finished third.

Truex made contact with the wall in the opening 20 laps and his No. 19 Toyota suffered early damage, but the team made adjustments and Truex was leading laps by early in the final stage.

“At the beginning of the race I thought we were going to run 15th or so,” Truex said on FOX. “I just can’t really believe it. I’m kind of speechless.”

He beat out Logano for the lead off the final restart, but Logano said Truex probably would have caught up with him eventually.

“He was fast,” Logano said. “It started to show at the end of the second stage...We’re just not fast enough right now.”

Familiar leaders find speed

While it wasn’t Phoenix titan Kevin Harvick whose name dominated the leaderboard Sunday, familiar frontrunners still took up top spots throughout the 312-lap race. Former Cup champions made up the top five finishing spots, including Brad Keselowski and Chase Elliott, for the first time this season.

Truex became the fifth different winner in the first five races of the season. He joins Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell, William Byron and Kyle Larson. Logano said after the race that he believed the return of regular leaders was because the 750 horsepower rules package used for the track is harder to drive.

“I think experience probably comes out more,” Logano said. “There are different techniques that I think the experienced guys have learned over the years racing cars that don’t have much downforce, don’t have horsepower.”

For the past two weekends at Homestead and Las Vegas, NASCAR elected to use the 550 horsepower, high downforce NA18D rules package, but Phoenix marked a change. Denny Hamlin said that the same package, including changes to the spoiler height, was last used in 2017, which gave more experienced teams and drivers an advantage.

“We’ve all been through tire changes, car changes, aerodynamic changes, track changes that we’re ahead of the game I guess you could say,” Hamlin said. “Especially since we have no practice, it lends itself more to experience.”

Martin Truex Jr. takes the top spot

Martin Truex Jr. is one of those experienced veterans, but the 2017 Cup champion earned just one victory in the series last season. He earned 14 top-five finishes last year and was a consistent field leader, but his best finish this year prior to Sunday — when he snapped a 29-race winless streak — was third at Homestead.

Truex, who was jubilant after the race, couldn’t pin down the exact change that allowed for his win at Phoenix after 31 starts, but said the No. 19 team focused closely on the specific package and track.

“I’ve probably had cars that felt better than what I had today,” Truex said. “But with the track being the way it is, this tire wearing out and the track getting as slick as it is, we were good enough to win. And that’s really what it’s all about.”

“It’s definitely a moving target in this sport,” he continued. “Everywhere we go, every week it’s different.”

Truex also confirmed post-race that he plans to enter the Truck Series dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway at the end of the month after sponsor Auto-Owners Insurance shared the news.

“Damn! They spilled the beans!” Truex exclaimed with a laugh when asked about the plans.

He will race for Kyle Busch Motorsports in his first Truck Series start since 2006. It will be his second Truck race and second race on a dirt track as Cup drivers prepare for racing stock cars on a dirt short track, a new wrinkle in this year’s schedule.

“I’m excited about it,” Truex said. “ ... It’s gonna be a learning curve for sure, but I look at it as Bristol’s been our worst track for the past couple of years. Why the heck not lay down dirt and see what we can do this way? I think it’s gonna be fun. A new challenge, something different.”

Kyle Larson blazes through penalties

Kyle Larson’s Phoenix run looked more like lines back-and-forth through the field rather than circles around the track. Larson received a pre-race inspection penalty Sunday that sent him to the back of the field from his front row starting spot.

Larson’s fast No. 5 Chevrolet quickly overcame that, driving up to 14th place within the opening 30 laps — only to be sent backwards again when he was hit with his first of two speeding penalties on pit road. It was an Achilles’ heel.

He was reminded in the second stage to watch his speed while pitting with the leaders from second place, but Larson was still caught driving over the limit and had to do a pass through, again dropping to the back. And again, he ran in the top-10 late in the race.

He finished the day in seventh, but proved his No. 5 team will be a formidable challenger on intermediate tracks this year after his win last weekend at Las Vegas.

A Team Penske track

Team Penske also made a statement on Sunday with two drivers, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, winning the first two stages, respectively. Brad Keselowski, who started the race on the pole, dropped from the lead early, but he consistently raced in the top three.

Logano won the first race at Phoenix last year and Keselowski finished in second place in the 2020 championship event at the track. Both Logano and Blaney earned their first stage win of the season at Phoenix as the organization aims to move ahead of Hendrick Motorsports as the team to beat early in the year.

Logano controlled the second stage and led a race-high 143 laps. He dominated after taking the lead early into the run, replacing Blaney as the field frontrunner at the close of the first stage. Blaney led 35 laps in Stage 1 and finished the race in 10th.

With 50 laps to go, a caution came out for Tyler Reddick’s blown tire, but a fast pit stop put Logano and Keselowski back into the top-three behind Bubba Wallace, who was the only one not to pit from the lead. As Wallace fell back on older tires, Keselowski and Logano shot ahead. Logano passed his teammate for the lead just before another caution came out for a Kyle Busch spin.

But after the final caution, Truex shot ahead of Logano for the lead after the restart and led the last laps to give Joe Gibbs Racing its second win of the season, putting the team on par with Hendrick.

“I wish it was November,” Truex said. “But hopefully we can come back here in November and have a shot at being in the Final 4.”

NASCAR race at Phoenix results

This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 6:57 PM.

Alexandra Andrejev

The Charlotte Observer

NASCAR and Charlotte FC beat reporter Alex Andrejev joined The Observer in January 2020 following an internship at The Washington Post. She is a two-time APSE award winner for her NASCAR beat coverage and National Motorsports Press Association award winner. She is the host of McClatchy’s podcast “Payback” about women’s soccer. Support my work with a digital subscription