Martin Truex Jr. took an unexpected victory in Sunday’s NASCAR Bojangles’ Southern 500, prevailing over Chevrolet’s Kevin Harvick to win under the lights at Darlington Raceway.
Harvick led a race-high 214 laps before forking the lead over to Truex Jr. late in the night. It wasn’t Harvick that gave his lead away however – it was his pit crew. Under caution on Lap 351, Harvick’s crew had a slow stop while Truex Jr.’s worked to get him in first place for the restart. Over the course of Sunday’s race, Harvick lost a total of 17 spots on pit road.
Truex eventually took the lead following the restart and led 28 laps of the 1.36-mile oval at Darlington before claiming the checkered flag. He beat Harvick to the line by just .606 seconds to take his second win of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
“This is unbelievable,” Truex told NASCAR.com post-race. “I’ve always loved this race track. I’ve led a lot of laps here in my career, but something always happens, and I’m so proud to get to Victory lane with this group. The pit crew was flawless tonight — they won us the race.
Last week’s race winner Kyle Larson turned up third Sunday, while Denny Hamlin, and Joey Logano rounded out the top five. Click here for full results from Darlington and here for a full schedule of net weekend’s NASCAR festivities from Richmond Raceway.
Comments
While truex is a single car team, and I wish him all the best he’s in a Toyota! on a gm site?
Hey Eric,
I usually try to cover all of the Sprint Cup Series races no matter who wins! Of course we prefer it if it’s a Chevy taking the checker, though 🙂