Kansas mastered
Two victories in hand, driver enters favorite stretch of Cup series season
Fresh off his win in Kansas, Martin Truex Jr. is confident heading into his favorite stretch of the season,
CITY, KAN. Martin KANSAS Truex Jr. can’t imagine anyone dominating the upcoming CocaCola 600 any better than he did last year.
But after what he accomplished in the Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway, anything is possible.
Truex ended five years of frustration at the 1.5-mile layout by winning at a track in which he led the most laps in three different spring races only to come up short. Saturday night, he led a race-high 104 laps for his first win at Kansas and second of the season.
Now, the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team shifts its sights to another 1.5-mile track — Charlotte Motor Speedway — for this week’s non-points Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race. And after that, the May 28 Coca-Cola 600, where last year Truex led 392 of the 400 laps (an event record) and 588 miles (a NASCAR record).
“I don’t think anybody can do that again,” Truex said of last year’s 600, the longest race on NASCAR’s 36-race Cup schedule. “Look how long it took. It’s pretty amazing to think about what we did, really. All the years that NASCAR has been around and the great drivers and the stories, and to do that in this day and age was incredible. Going to be tough to top that one for sure.”
Still, Truex, who is second in the standings this season after winning a career-high four races last year, is exuding confidence.
“Man, I’ll tell you, the last two years have just been … it’s just ev- ery weekend has had that feeling,” said Truex, who has won seven races in his four seasons with Furniture Row. “I know that we’ve been in position to win a lot of races.
“I’ve had a couple of the greatest years of my career with this team, and I just can’t wait to show up at every racetrack. It doesn’t matter where it is — Charlotte, to come off of a season like last year that we had at that racetrack, going into the All- Star Race is exciting. That’s a race that everybody wants to win. It’s cool just to be a part of that. But to know that you have a shot going in to win that thing is special.”
Truex’s crew chief, Cole Pearn, is looking even further down the road.
“This is like just a strong part of the schedule for us,” Pearn said. “I look back at the last two years, and I think from Kansas, Charlotte, Dover, Pocono, Michigan are all really strong tracks for us, and we always kind of … we circle that time frame to know that’s our shot to capitalize just because that’s where we’ve typically run strong.
“You’ve got to continue to evolve, though. Last year is last year. That was an unbelievable night, an unbelievable accomplishment. But this field is so tough, and you just never know, two weeks from now could be a totally different pecking order in the competition, so you’ve just got to stay with it, and hopefully we’re in a good spot when we get to the 600.”
ALMIROLA UPDATE:
Aric Almirola was released from a hospital Sunday morning after suffering injuries in a multicar crash Saturday night at Kansas.
Almirola suffered a compression fracture to his T5 vertebra but is mobile, his team, Richard Petty Motorsports, said in a statement. Almirola was scheduled to fly to his home in Mooresville, N.C., on Sunday and will be monitored by doctors in Charlotte this week.
Almirola, 33, caught the worst of a three-car collision with Joey Logano and Danica Patrick in the Go Bowling 400 after a brake rotor broke inside Logano’s car, causing his No. 22 Ford to veer sharply to the left and hard into Danica Patrick’s 10 Ford in Turn 1. Almirola, who was trailing, came up on the wreck and hit both cars, lifting the No. 43 Ford’s back wheels off the racing surface.
Almirola had to be extracted from his vehicle by safety crews, who removed the windscreen and cut the top off his car. He was alert when he was pulled from the car and was placed on a board before being airlifted to University of Kansas Medical Center. Logano and Patrick were checked and released from the infield care center.
Almirola is competing in his 10th season in the Cup series and his sixth full time with RPM. He won the 2014 summer race at Daytona International Speedway and has 10 career top-five finishes, including two this season — in the Daytona 500 and at Talladega Superspeedway on May 7.