Column By: MARTY CZEKALA / RPW – DOVER, DE – Martin Truex Jr. took two tires on a late race restart to hold off Ross Chastain, end a 54-race winless streak, and win the Würth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway, the fourth time he has won at his track.
“Such a long winless streak,” Truex said post-race. “Certainly in those 54 races, there’s a bunch of them that we probably should have won or had the best car.”
Truex made his way up from 17th in the field Monday and took the lead over Ross Chastain after undercutting the final set of green flag pit stops to take the lead. It was a strategy that crew chief James Small said was for track position.
“I was watching the laps count down there, and just you watch the cars around and what lap traffic was coming up, and it was just so hard to pass,” Small told RPW. “I knew we were like right in our window where I thought it was going to be OK, and just made sure we waited until the last minute to call him and to make sure that he couldn’t get down there, as well. It worked out.”
It was challenging as Chastain started reeling him in, but it was tough to pass Truex.
“I could get two, three car lengths, couldn’t get any closer, and I felt like I was a little faster than him, but he was just moving around on the racetrack to take the air away from me, and I wasn’t going to be able to pass him,” Truex explained. “Really the difference in the race was the green flag cycle, jumping him by two laps or whatever we did there, coming out in front. Felt like our cars were really equal, and whoever got out front was going to have the advantage, and that’s really what it came down to. But it was a good race, and he did a good job.”
The final caution with 13 to go changed everything when Joey Logano crashed in turn four to open up a lot of strategies. Truex took two tires, while Logano took four.
“The two-tire call, given there were still only eight people on the lead lap, I thought there was others that were going to do it, especially like the 12, in a situation just like us,” Small said. “I was a little worried. Even though we had the gaps and the spacing and everything with the other cars, even in a straight fight with the 1 on pit road that crew is exceptional. I thought on a four-tire stop they would probably beat us, which given the times, they probably would have.
A memorable win for the Truex family after Martin’s younger brother Ryan won his first career Xfinity race Saturday. There will surely be a party in Mayetta, NJ.
“It’s not a long list of brothers that have swept a weekend in NASCAR racing history,” Truex stated. “To be on that list with some of the guys that have done it is really, really cool for both of us and our whole family.”
Martin and Ryan are the sixth brothers to win in the same NASCAR weekend.