Truex profits from Larson woes to win
NASCAR CUP KENTUCKY (USA) JULY 14 ROUND 19/36
Spare a thought for Kyle Larson in the 2018 NASCAR Cup series, and Penske’s Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney too.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver and the Penske pairing are improving each week in the battle up front.
But the void between those three and the dominant Martin Truex Jr,
Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick remains expansive.
At Kentucky this weekend, it was Truex’s turn to ease to his fourth victory in 2018. Truex led 174 of the 267 laps, with his biggest challenge coming when Keselowski bolted two new tyres on after stage two to jump the Furniture Row Racing driver out of pitroad, and Kyle Larson then surged past Truex for second. But 10 laps later Larson’s track bar broke, handing Truex second before the defending champion reeled in Keselowski for first.
Kurt Busch made a vain attempt to steal victory on a late caution, but it wasn’t enough to stop Truex’s charge.
“You never know how these races are going to play out,” Truex said. “We had such a strong Toyota tonight they weren’t going to beat us.
“We had to make a lot of adjustments on the car and had to battle back from a few times getting passed for the lead and coming out of the pits second or third.”
The topic in the post-race press conference soon changed to whether the current three-driver dominance of NASCAR was healthy, which
Truex had little time for.
“Is it good for the sport? I don’t know. I really don’t care,” he said.
“My job is to go win races. My job is to win championships. And that’s what I’m here to do.
“They [NASCAR] keep changing the rules, they can change things all they want, and we’re going to try to figure it out. That’s just what we do.”