NASCAR results: Martin Truex Jr. wins Cup race at Darlington Raceway

No driver had ever won a stage at Darlington and gone on to take the checkered flag until Martin Truex Jr. not only snapped that streak, but soundly buried it Sunday. Truex swept the first two stages of NASCAR’s Cup race, the Goodyear 400, and led all but 45 laps at the track deemed “Too Tough To Tame.”

“Throwing it back to an old school (butt) whooping,” the No. 19 radio cheered after the team’s third win of the season.

Truex credited the race package: “I love low downforce,” he said.

Truex holds off late push from Larson

The driver put nearly 15 seconds between him and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch to close the end of the second stage. That lead shrunk to around three seconds in the final 60 laps, but Truex’s car wouldn’t give up its dominant speed with clean air out front.

Then came a big move from Kyle Larson winding down to the final 50 laps. Larson passed Busch to move into second place, then raced to within a second of Truex with 30 to go to make the leader nervous for the first time.

“The 5 car scared me at the end,” JGR team owner Joe Gibbs said.

“Me too!” added Truex.

It was a rundown that included a bold move by Larson, running three-wide and threading between the lapped cars of Ryan Newman and Tyler Reddick in an effort to catch the No. 19.

“I knew I needed to make quick work of them if I wanted to have an opportunity to get to Martin,” Larson said. “The 6 kind of pulled lower than I thought he would and I saw the door open and put my nose through it and came out the other side.”

Larson’s pass was successful (“glad I didn’t wreck there”) but his car ultimately didn’t have enough for the leader at the end. He finished in second. Busch, who won last weekend at Kansas, finished in third.

Hamlin’s not worried about no win: “Just the law of averages”

Truex earned his 30th career win, only his second at Darlington, but said the high horsepower and low downforce engine and aero package have worked well for his team this year. He won at Phoenix and Martinsville with the same package, which NASCAR changed for Darlington this season.

“From a statistics standpoint, they’re gonna say it’s not a good race cause Truex dominated,” said Denny Hamlin, who finished in fifth.

Both Hamlin and Busch noted how much the cars were sliding with the low grip levels, but Hamlin called it a “driver’s racetrack.”

The No. 11 driver earned his ninth top-five finish in 12 races this season, led five laps and finished the first two stages in the top-five, but was never able to challenge for the lead. He said his car went through a big swing from the start of the race to the finish and faded in the second half for the worst balance he’s had all year. Hamlin, who won seven races last season (three in the first 12 races), said he didn’t have any doubt that a win for his team was on the horizon.

“Just the law of averages,” Hamlin said. “You can’t be in the top-two, three the entire race and not win a race ... Eventually the odds start coming back to you.”

Byron’s top-10 roll continues

William Byron also had another strong finish Sunday. He finished in fourth for his 10th top-10 in a row since winning at Homestead, and his fourth top-five finish this year. Byron said that he feels like his No. 24 Chevrolet has been in the mix lately with the top teams.

“We’re in that kind of fourth-to-sixth range right now,” Byron said. “So we just have to break that seal to get into the top-two or three.”

The Charlotte driver said the team is “getting close” to reaching that speed alongside the cars of Larson and Truex. He appeared cheerful both before and after the race, despite the emotional challenge of announcing earlier this week that his mother is starting treatment soon for a brain tumor.

He drove with a green ribbon decal with the words “Mom” and “Ephesians 3:20” on the side of his Throwback Valvoline paint scheme that honored Neil Bonnett. The 23-year-old raced with the Bible verse written on his dashboard when he first started driving and said he planned to eat some ice cream with his mother, Dana, when he returned home.

“We didn’t really know when we wanted to tell everybody (about the diagnosis),” Byron said. “It was kind of all on her terms, but she’s been awesome with it.”

NASCAR infield reopening

Sunday also saw the return of more guests in the infield, including vaccinated media members, and around a 35 percent of the grandstand capacity filled with fans. Darlington Raceway announced Friday with two other tracks, Daytona and Kansas, that it would reopen the stands fully to fans for races in the late summer and early fall.

Gibbs stressed the importance to the infield reopening for teams aiming to sell sponsorships and establish business relationships post-pandemic.

“Evidently in the fall we’re going to have the place packed,” Gibbs said. “It’s very important, too, to get those key people from the companies back into our sport, and I’m looking forward to getting to go again and do hospitalities.”

Most pandemic protocols are remaining in place for now, however, meaning Truex celebrated solo. He said that his brother-in-law who works on the NASCAR Trucks team that won Friday’s race wasn’t allowed to enter Victory Lane. Truex also shared that the same brother-in-law gave him grief before the race by joking that NASCAR going away from a low downforce package would be all his fault.

“He’ll tell me tonight when I go home, ‘You did it again. You stunk up the show.’” Truex said. “So sorry, not sorry.”

Race results

This story was originally published May 9, 2021 at 7:10 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