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Truex Jr. ends drought with win at Sonoma
nascar.com
SONOMA, Calif. -- For Martin Truex Jr., a welcome oasis called Sonoma
Raceway at long last ended one of the longest droughts in NASCAR racing.
With a convincing victory in Sunday’s Toyota Save Mart 350, Truex ended
a winless streak of 218 races dating to June 4, 2007 at Dover, where he
finished 7,355 seconds ahead of runner-up Ryan Newman.
On Sunday at Sonoma, Truex beat second-place Jeff Gordon by an even
bigger margin -- 8.133 seconds -- as Juan Pablo Montoya dropped from
the second position after running out of fuel on the next-to-last lap.
Truex set a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series record for the largest number of
races between a driver’s first and second victories. It was the second
longest streak between any two Cup wins. When Bill Elliott triumphed at
Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2001, the victory snapped a winless streak
of 226 races.
Carl Edwards ran third Sunday, followed by Kurt Busch, who rallied from
consecutive pit road speeding penalties to score his fourth top-five of
the season. Clint Bowyer, last year’s winner, came home fifth, followed
by Kasey Kahne and Marcos Ambrose.
“I can’t even put it into words,” Truex said after climbing from his
car in Victory Lane. “I’ve got so many people to thank for sticking
with me … We’ve had cars really fast all year long. We’ve had some
tough luck, but that’s part of racing.”
Truex had finished second six times since his 2007 win.
“I’m just proud of these guys for sticking behind me and working hard
and giving me race cars like this,” he said. “My pit crew’s really
turned it on lately, and today was just our day. We’ve had a lot of
days when it wasn’t our day, and today it was just our time.
“The car was flawless, and I tried to forget about what was behind me
and focus on winning. We’re going to get a bunch of them now -- I can
tell you that much.”
Truex’s elation carried over into his post-race press conference.
“What streak?” he quipped and then was reminded of team owner Michael
Waltrip’s 462-race winless streak before he got his first Cup win.
“I had about four years left in me then, didn’t I,” Truex joked.
Greg Biffle, series leader Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick completed
the top 10. Montoya, who was running second with two laps left, fell to
34th at the finish after running out of fuel.
Like Busch, Gordon also had to overcome a penalty to score his
runner-up finish. Just before caution flew on Lap 24 because of rain,
Gordon tried to duck onto pit road before it closed but missed the
light by about a second.
Consequently, he had to restart at the back of the field on Lap 31 and
spent the rest of the race -- through hard driving and solid strategy
-- working his way to the front.
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