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JOLIET, Ill. — Martin Truex Jr., the driver with the briefcase full of bonus points and the fastest black Toyota Camry in the country, proved for the umpteenth time this year why his No. 78 team is a favorite to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship.
The Furniture Row Racing pilot won Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400, the opening race of this year’s 10-race Playoffs.
He won it convincingly, 7.179 seconds ahead of runner-up Chase Elliott.
He won it after an early pit-road penalty for speeding dropped him from what had been second to what’s referred to as “the tail end of the field.”
Back country, in other words. The back of the field is so far removed from the front they don’t have electricity there.
But to the surprise of no one, Truex and his team, led by crew chief Cole Pearn, flogged away at the competition until, hey whaddya know, ol’ Martin’s right back in the mix.
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Truex wasn’t the only one to run afoul of NASCAR’s pit-road “radar” on a cloudy day here southwest of Chicago.
Six others were ticketed for speeding as well, including fellow playoffs drivers Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Kurt Busch.
If there was any consolation for Truex and his group, it was that the infraction occurred on Lap 39 of the 267-lap race, giving them plenty of time to try and overcome the setback. But it wasn’t the only setback.
“We were lucky enough to stay on the lead lap,” Pearn said of the speeding penalty. “That was really the key there. Then we left lugs off on the next stop, had to come back, which was kind of just poor execution on our part.”
It also helped, Truex said, that it took place at the Chicago track, a venue that features an old and worn surface. That makes for options when searching for the fastest way around the track.
If the beginning seemed a trifle mess, by the time the first two stages had ended, Truex and the team appeared to have all issues resolved. From that point, they did what they’ve done much of the year.
Hammer down.
At Lap 190, he passed then-leader Kevin Harvick to take the lead for the first time in the race. He gave it up briefly, for one lap, under caution, before restarting out front and leading the final 55 laps.
It was impressive but it wasn’t unexpected. Still, there were mixed messages in the garage afterward.
Martin Truex Jr. gets slimed after winning in Chicago.
At least one long-timer said the rest of the field had a ways to go to catch the No. 78.
Another, however, said the 78 was good, but that the No. 18 of Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing) was probably the better car Sunday.
Busch was felled by a series of incidents, including problems by his newly anointed pit crew, that kept the 2015 champion a lap down for much of the race. Had that not been the case …
“I like those guys, so I don’t want to wish them ill will,” Pearn said. “I was pretty happy we weren’t racing them. Even when they were back in there, they were really strong, had good speed.”
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JGR supplies Furniture Row with its chassis as well as technical information. It’s a popular alliance out in Denver, Colorado, where the Barney Visser-owned team is based. How it’s going over inside the walls of JGR up in Huntersville, North Carolina, is anyone’s guess.
The five wins for Truex on the season is a career best and one better than a year ago. He was fast then, too, but not fortunate. A blown engine at Talladega took him out of the playoffs picture.
Now, he is the first to qualify for the Round of 12 no matter how he fares next week at New Hampshire or the week after at Dover.
And the bonus points, well, those continue to grow as well.
“From our standpoint, really our outlook, our approach doesn’t change from what it was in the regular season,” Truex said. “We go every single week to try to win both stages and try to win the race, try to get as many of those points as we can in case we have something happen like we did last year at Talladega.”
It stopped them last year. But it doesn’t appear the competition will be as fortunate this time around.