His first win at Dover was also the last for Dale Earnhardt, Inc.
This weekend, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Dover International Speedway and for Martin Truex Jr., it’s a return to a site of one of his greatest triumphs.
A native of New Jersey, Truex considers Dover his home track, and in 2007, the then 26-year-old found some home cooking at the Monster Mile.
Driving for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in his second full-time premier series season after winning back-to-back titles in what was then called the NASCAR Busch Series, the closest Truex had previously come to a Cup victory was a second-place showing in the 2006 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
It all came together for Truex on a Monday afternoon, June 4, 2007 at Dover. Yes, that’s right a Monday afternoon, after rain washed out the planned 400-lap event on Sunday.
And the extra day wait was well worth it for Truex. Starting 26th in the field, Truex worked his way up and by Lap 125 he held the lead. All told Truex led 216 of the 400 laps, including 200 of the final 243 circuits to score his first career Sprint Cup victory by a stunning 7.355-second margin. His win was the deepest a victorious driver had started in the field at Dover since Tony Stewart in 2000 and has yet to be matched.
“I remember everything about it,” Truex said two weeks ago at Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Sprint All-Star Race weekend. “I mean it’s like absolutely everything. I remember how practice went, what we did to the car, where we were. I remember the whole weekend.
“It was a special day for sure. And to win there for me, that’s my home track and it’s like one of my favorites tracks so it was a big deal. We had a lot of friends and family there, too.”
Truex stayed hot in the coming weeks with a third-place finish at Pocono and a runner-up result at Michigan. He would go on to make the Chase that season as well. However, Truex’s next win didn’t come for 218 premier series races, until 2013 at Sonoma when he was driving for Michael Waltrip Racing.
“Honestly when we won that race we thought we were going to start clicking them off,” Truex said. “We had chances that year; that was a great year for us in ’07. We were in position to win a bunch of races. A lot of times things went like they did last weekend (at Kansas). It was disappointing but we really felt like that season was our breakout season. Then things started to go downhill when things started to break apart (at DEI).”
The win would be the last of 24 premier series victories for Dale Earnhardt, Inc., the race team founded by seven-time champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt. The month before Truex’s Dover win, Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced he was leaving the race team at the end of the season. Starting with the 2009 season, DEI merged with Chip Ganassi Racing to form Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, a partnership that lasted until the end of the 2013 season.
The win also came on the same day that Bill France Jr., the son NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and the father to current NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France, passed away at 74.
— NASCAR.com’s Kenny Bruce contributed to this report