Truex makes late surge to win the Pocono 400
Martin Truex Jr. pulled away off a restart with seven laps left to win the NASCAR Pocono 400 on Sunday and thrust himself back into the championship picture.
Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick had turned the season into a two-driver show, winning nine of the first 13 races. Each driver spent time in front and battled for the lead over the final laps until the final restart on the 21⁄2-mile track in Long Pond, Pa.
Truex showed why he’s still a threat to win his second straight title.
Truex took the checkered flag in the No. 78 Toyota after two straight runner-up finishes in a season where he was almost an afterthought compared to the Busch-Harvick dominance.
“I think three of those guys are head-over-heels better than the rest of us,” Kyle Larson said.
Larson wasn’t so bad himself. He finished second Sunday, followed by Busch and Harvick. Brad Keselowski was fifth.
Busch won the Xfinity Series race Saturday to help Toyota sweep the weekend.
But Pocono belonged to Truex and he won his 17th career Cup race.
“I hope they got a lot of Yuengling in victory lane,” he said over the radio about the Pennsylvania beer. “We’re going to drink it all!”
He had it sprayed on him instead in victory lane.
“I feel like we’re getting back to what we were doing last year,” Truex said. “It’s always fun to win, especially when you beat the best guys out there.”
Harvick led 89 laps and Busch led 13. Truex led 31 overall and the final 20 to celebrate at the same track where he won his first race for Furniture Row Racing in 2015.
In the stunning stat department, seven-time Jimmie Johnson led his first laps of the season in the first stage.
Johnson, who led as many as 2,238 laps in a season in 2009, was in first for the first time since Martinsville in the 33rd race last season.
Johnson finished eighth an extended the longest losing streak of his career to 37. It’s been a year since he last won — June 4, 2017, at Dover.
Paul Menard of Eau Claire, Wis., was 11th and Matt Kenseth of Cambridge, Wis., took 13th.
IndyCar: Ryan Hunter-Reay won his first IndyCar race since 2015, prevailing at Belle Isle after teammate Alexander Rossi slid off the track at a turn with about seven laps to go.
Rossi, the pole winner, was struggling to hold off Hunter-Reay before the mishap at a right turn on Lap 64 of 70. From there, it was smooth sailing for Hunter-Reay on the 2.35-mile street course in Detroit. He finished more than 11 seconds ahead of second-place Will Power.
Ed Jones finished third, followed by Scott Dixon. Rossi fell to 12th and dropped out of the series points lead.
Power, the Indianapolis 500 champion, returned to the top of the season standings. He’d fallen from first to third after Saturday’s race, in which Dixon outlasted Hunter-Reay for the win.
The race Sunday was delayed more than a half-hour after the pace car crashed into a wall.