You could tell this one meant a lot to Martin Truex Jr.
You could tell in how he raced on Monday, sure, sailing to New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s Victory Lane without much of a fight from the field.
But you could also tell by his post-race emotion — his hands above his head in victory at his hometown track.
It made you wonder: Was there anywhere else he’d rather win?
“I don’t think so,” the normally level-headed Truex told NBC Sports on the fronstretch of the speedway, answering that very question. “What we’ve been able to do here over the years is pretty remarkable, and to not win was really getting frustrating. (My crew chief) James (Small) and I talked about it many times. We thought about it all weekend.
“We talked about it with (Joe Gibbs Racing teammate) Christopher (Bell) before the race. He was like, ‘Man, you’ve led more laps here than I’ve even raced in Cup.’”
Truex added: “This is feeling really, really good to do what we did today and finally cap it off with a lobster (the racetrack’s unique trophy).”
It wasn’t too long ago that Truex’s power in the NASCAR world was called into question. The 43-year-old driver won a Cup championship in 2017, but a winless 2022 season called his racing virility — and his desire to stay in the sport — into check.
That all seems silly now, though, three points race wins into his 2023 season of resurgence. He has now won at Dover (also a northeast intermediate track race run on a Monday) and Sonoma (a road course) — and leads the Cup Series in points ahead of William Byron and Christopher Bell.
To make such a statement at a place where he first fell in love with NASCAR is special, he said.
“I sat in Turn 1 with my mom,” Truex reminisced. “My little brother was drinking out of a bottle, so it was — we were young. I was 12, 13, maybe 14, whatever. But this is the first big track I ever came to with my dad and watched and the first time I’d ever seen Cup cars in person and Busch cars in person. It’s been a special place for us.”
He added: “Being able to win K&N (now ARCA Series East), being able to win the Busch Series, this one has been eluding me for a long, long time, so I’m just really, really happy, really thankful, and I can’t say enough about my team, man. They’re incredible.”
Joey Logano finished second. And Kevin Harvick, like all greats do, muscled a third-place finish despite not having a Top 3 car.
Truex was really the only one who deserved to win this one. The race saw eight cautions for 41 laps and 13 lead changes thanks to varying pit-road strategies — but Truex led 254 of Monday’s 301 laps. He won Stage 1 and 2, too.
The closest he came to being challenged for the win on Monday, in fact, wasn’t at the race’s final restart with 10 laps to go. Instead, it came with about 40 laps to go: Ryan Blaney was gaining ground on him, and the 12 car had only gotten better throughout the day — but on a caution pit stop, Blaney suffered a running-over-equipment penalty and had to drop to the rear of the field.
That sequence took Blaney out of winning contention and further paved the road for a Truex win. Logano came close on that aforementioned restart with 10 to go but couldn’t catch the leader.
“Right before that (second-to-last) caution came out, it seemed like the 19 took a few laps to get going,” Logano recalled. “I was running him down. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got a chance here.’
“And then that (last) caution came out right when I was thinking I could make a move on the outside into 3.”
Logano added: “Dang it, the home track, there’s no place you want to win more than this. So it stings to not get the Shell-Pennzoil Ford into Victory Lane. But gosh, second just sucks sometimes, you know? It stings the most when you’re that close and feeling like you had a shot at it. Still a good day for us.”
Three other observations from New Hampshire
— Kyle Busch has a rough start. The No. 8 team seemed to struggle all weekend — between practice and qualifying and also right before the green flag. Busch was sent to the rear of the field for unapproved adjustments and never really rose as expected thereafter. The end of his day came on a turn in Stage 1, when his car got loose and knocked hard into the wall. His car suffered irreparable damage after that hit. The result isn’t devastating for the two-time Cup champion, however, because he’s already won three times this year.
— Aric Almirola experiences another tough end to a promising day.This result, unlike Busch’s day-ending wreck, was devastating. The driver of the 10 car ran in the Top 10 all day — and even led the field off a Stage 2 restart — when a lug nut got loose in his right-front tire and made his car wreck into the wall. That came on Lap 169 of 301 laps.
Almirola entered Monday 27th in points and 311 points below the cut line. He was despondent after emerging from the infield care center as the rest of the field raced around him.
“I thought it (the right-rear) felt a little bit awkward leaving pit road, but then after that, I was working my tires in and going through the gears before the restart, and I spun the tires a few times, and everything felt normal,” Almirola said. “I didn’t really have any concerns going into the restart, and then, obviously the right-rear wheel came off. So, just really, really disappointed.”
Almirola added: “This race team has been working so hard to bring fast race cars to the track. I’m so proud of everybody — Drew and all the guys on our team. We’re not capitalizing when we have cars capable of running up-front. Just frustrating, disappointing, all the words you can use to describe being upset is certainly where we are. I hate it.”
— Christopher Bell can’t recreate his 2022 magic.The driver of the No. 20 car started on the pole on Monday and had a fast car throughout, but various mistakes kept burying him in the field. Among those mistakes: two mistakes from his team on pit road and then a single-car wreck with less than 15 laps to go in the race. He finished P29.
