Larson perseveres through four late restarts to win at Fontana; Truex finishes fourth.
Furniture Row’s Truex is fourth, and Jones finishes 12th
fontana, calif.» A blistering first in qualifying. A surprising first in the Xfinity Series race.
And a steady, tenacious first when it really mattered on Sunday.
Kyle Larson was second to nobody in his home state.
Larson persevered through four late restarts to win at Fontana, adding his second career victory to his overall Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series points lead.
“Fun to be Kyle Larson right now,” Larson said with a grin. “Our race cars are really fast in Xfinity and Cup, so it’s a blast to show up to the race track.”
Larson finished second in each of the last three races, but the Sacramento-area native’s Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet was the class of the field at Auto Club Speedway all weekend long.
He claimed the second pole of his career Friday, and he also won the Xfinity race Saturday in a result that surprised him much more than his Cup triumph. The 24-year-old prodigy became just the fourth driver to sweep a race weekend at Fontana.
Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. led four times for 73 laps and finished second and first in the opening two segments.
He finished fourth overall and earned 19 additional standing points, including one playoff point for the second segment win.
“We were right there all day long,” Truex said. “I felt like the 42 (Kyle Larson) had everybody covered. It was just a matter of who got out front and got clean air. Towards the end we had a little trouble in the pits and on another stop we didn’t take tires, everybody else did and we were at a big disadvantage those last couple restarts.”
Teammate Erik Jones was a topfive performer until being penalized for a pit-road tire violation with only a few laps to go. He ended in 12th.
“We were fast, we just don’t complete the races that well so we have to go to work and get a little bit better and figure out how we ran all day,” Jones said.