Truex in fine spot after win
SPARTA, Ky. — Martin Truex Jr. was feeling confident after his most dominant performance this season.
That’s understandable, considering the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion and his Furniture Row Racing team are slightly ahead of last season’s pace — with signs of even better things to come.
“I feel great about where we’re at,” Truex said Saturday night after leading 174 laps from the pole to repeat as winner of Kentucky Speedway’s 400-mile race. “Most importantly, I feel like as a team we’re getting dialed in more so like we were last year.
“I feel like we’re getting closer, getting more dialed in to what we’re doing, to what the car wants with the new rules and things. And that’s how I felt like we were last year.”
Truex’s fourth victory and 13th top10 finish of 2018 in the No. 78 Toyota Camry are each one better than after this event a year ago, though this race was run a week later. He still trails series points leader Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick but cut his deficit to Busch from 120 points to 110.
Busch was fourth and Harvick fifth at Kentucky to maintain their positions, but Truex is serving notice of being the driver to beat when the playoffs begin in September.
Ryan Blaney was second and Brad Keselowski third at Kentucky. Rounding out the top 10 were Kurt Busch, who led three times for 45 laps; Erik Jones, who started second in a Toyota; and Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson and Joey Logano.
Truex earned his third win in six starts and posted his eighth top-four performance in the past nine. His mastery of Kentucky’s 1.5-mile layout ought to boost confidence at the handful of similar-length ovals that make up half of the playoff schedule.
His Denver-based team, meanwhile, would like to build on encouraging showings across all tracks.
“We’re just continuing to try and get better, and it’s been a lot of hard work,” crew chief Cole Pearn said. “I don’t know if it’s the same as last year or not, but I think we’ve kind of thrown that away and just focused on the moment. We’ll see where the future takes us.”
Truex’s immediate focus is closing the deal next Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where he led three times for 137 laps before finishing third last summer. He’ll try to repeat on Watkins Glen’s road course a couple of weeks later.
“We’ve got some good tracks coming up,” Truex said. “We’ll just see. It’s important to carry momentum through these summer months and get ready for the playoffs.”
Kentucky will stand out for Truex, though, and not just because his car rolled away from him during a postrace interview. He swept every stage and frequently picked off challengers before putting distance between them.
The same can be said for the standings, where he, Kyle Busch and Harvick are separating themselves from the field.
“Is it good for the sport? I don’t know. I really don’t care,” Truex said. “My job is to go win races. My job is to win championships. That’s what I’m here to do.
IndyCar: Dixon wins
TORONTO — Scott Dixon won Sunday’s IndyCar race for his third title at the event.
The New Zealand native finished the 85-lap course on the streets surrounding Exhibition Place first, with France’s Simon Pagenaud second and Robert Wickens third, marking the third year in a row a Canadian landed on the podium.
Canada’s James Hinchcliffe was fourth after two straight years of thirdplace finishes.
Tennessee driver Josef Newgarden looked poised to repeat as the winner and win for the third time in Toronto, starting in the pole position and leading for most of the first 32 laps on a hot and humid day. On the first turn of lap 33, though, he hit the wall, allowing Dixon to take the lead.
Dixon, who entered the event 33 points ahead of Newgarden in the championship standings, cruised to victory from there.
Further chaos ensued at the corner as Ryan Hunter-Reay, Graham Rahal, Will Power, Max Chilton, Ed Jones, Alexander Rossi and Sebastien Bourdais were involved in a collision.