Martin Truex, Jr. went out and showed everyone how it’s done. He won the first two Stages, led 248 of 293 laps and then went to victory lane for his series-leading third win — something no other Stage winner has done. That’s what we call a spanking.
Kyle Larson did his best to keep Truex from winning but he just didn’t have the speed that Truex had. No one else wasn’t even close to running with Truex. It was a race where 36 other drivers were wishing for a mechanical failure or lapped traffic to wreck the leader. With there just not being much more to say than that, let’s get right to who had a good race and who is not having any fun right now.
Toyota ran pretty well with Kyle Busch (P3) and Denny Hamlin (P5) leading 9 and 5 laps respectively. That gives Joe Gibbs Racing 262 of the 293 laps led in the race. That is just incredible.
Chevy was paced by Hendrick teammates Kyle Larson (P2), William Byron (P4) and Chase Elliott (P7) but none of them led a single lap. Still, not all bad but they need to do more soon.
Ford was paced by Kevin Harvick (P6) who led 10 laps, and followed by Ryan Blaney (P8), Chris Buescher (P9) and Ryan Newman (P10). That’s right, Newman. Could he win a race this year?
Who isn’t liking racing right now? Look no further than Aric Almirola (P37) who wrecked 5 laps in. Almirola has had nothing short of a terrible year so far and really needs a win to right that ship. Heck, even a win may not right the ship but it would get them into the playoffs and that is all that matters right now.
Kurt Busch (P35) also wrecked out early on lap 106. Kurt has been having an and up and down year and sites mired in 20th in points. He is probably more capable of putting his car into victory lake right now than Amirola, but he too needs more than that to get them headed in the right direction.
Dover presents another “normal” racetrack this week before the teams head to Circuit oof the America’s where they will finally get to practice.
Harvick is the reigning race champ and has 2 wins in the last 6 races. Other winners are Hamlin, Larson, Truex and Elliott. Harvick and Truex also each have 5 Top 10 finishes in the last 6 races. Truex has also been the runner up the last three races. That fact and his Darlington win should make Truex a heavy favorite this weekend.
Larson is also no slouch at Dover but they still don’t have all the stars lined up yet on the 5 team. Could this weekend be the one? Or could Denny Hamlin finally return to victory lane this week? As the reigning race winner, Harvick can’t be overlooked even though he hasn’t shown tremendous speed this year. He has shown resiliency though and that could be a perfect match up at Dover.
It’s easy to pick Truex this weekend but might have to go with Hamlin. My dark horse winner will be Kyle Larson. My longshot would be William Byron since he has shown the most Chevy speed aside from Larson.
Who do you have? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
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(Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
