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 It was Truex's fourth consecutive race in which he led the most
laps, but this time it led to his third career win, snapping a
69-race drought.
"Well, we finally got it," Truex said. "That is all I can say; we
finally got it. We have had a good run. We have had a great season.
We have had everything it has taken to win races, we just hadn't got
it done yet."
Kevin Harvick finished second and Jimmie Johnson was third, despite
suffering a flat tire while running third on lap 87.
"She is beat up and missing a left-front splitter, too, from the
contact we had with the outside wall off of turn three, there,"
Johnson said. "Just a long day for us. We overcame a lot and still
got a third-place finish out of it."
Joey Logano finished fourth after starting the race in the back
because of a rear gear change and then serving a pit road speeding
penalty in the first 30 laps. Kurt Busch finished fifth.
"I'm happy with the way it ended," Logano said. "We didn't have a
very fast Shell/Pennzoil Ford from the get-go when we unloaded here,
but we kept fighting hard. This was one of those blue-collar days,
just working hard all day on the car and on pit road. The guys did a
good job making my car faster and got to where we were a top-five
car at the end."
Truex and Logano restarted the race on the front row with 16 laps
remaining. Truex was able to maintain his spot up front, but Logano
lost second to Johnson and then third to Harvick. A few laps later,
Harvick got by Johnson to take second.
Truex and Harvick were running first and second when the yellow flag
waved with just under 40 laps to go in the 160-lap race, but Harvick
lost two positions on pit road during the caution, restarting
fourth. He got back up to second, though, when Kurt Busch got
sideways next to the lapped car of J.J. Yeley soon after the
restart.
Truex and Harvick then maintained their positions in first and
second through two more late-race restarts. Logano was able to get
by Harvick just before a lap-140 caution.
"The handling was great," Harvick said. "Our Budweiser Chevy was
really fast, but we were just terrible on the restarts getting
going. We would go into defense mode, there, trying to just keep
from going from fifth to sixth or something like that and try to
minimize the damage."
After Kurt Busch started on the pole, Carl Edwards took the lead at
the start of the race. Truex took the lead on lap 15, and a lap
later, Harvick moved into second.
Truex and Harvick each led throughout the first half of the race.
Harvick took the lead for the first time during a cycle of
green-flag pit stops between laps 22 and 30, with Truex in second.
Truex then retook the lead by taking only two tires on pit road
during the first caution of the race on lap 49.
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Truex got mired back in the field after pitting while others stayed
out when the yellow flag waved again on lap 68. Harvick restarted
the race in the lead after staying out.
Pit strategies continued to vary with the third yellow flag on lap
87 and then the fourth after only one lap of green-flag racing on
lap 93. Truex was back up front for the restart after the lap-93
caution.
With 60 laps to go, Harvick was back into the top five. Just a few
laps later, he was second to Truex. Harvick then began closing in on
Truex and was two seconds behind Truex with 50 laps to go.
The yellow flag waved eight times, with the first of those cautions
being for debris. The next four were for single-car incidents --
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on lap 68, Johnson on lap 87, Alex Bowman on lap
93 and Sam Hornish Jr. on lap 121. The lap-121 caution began a rash
of late-race cautions that mired the final 40 laps of the race. The
yellow flag waved again on lap 128 when Brett Moffitt spun as a
result of contact from Brad Keselowski. It waved again for Danica
Patrick a few laps later and then again on lap 140 for an incident
between A.J. Allmendinger and Ryan Newman.
NOTES: Dale Earnhardt Jr. won both Sprint Cup Series races at Pocono
Raceway in 2014. ... Hendrick Motorsports won the five most recent
Sprint Cup races at Pocono prior to Sunday's race. All four HMS
drivers (Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne)
contributed wins in that streak. ... The last two Pocono races
before Hendrick's dominance were won by the two current Team Penske
drivers, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski. Logano, though, was still
with Joe Gibbs Racing when he won the first 2012 race at Pocono. ...
Trevor Bayne won the ARCA Racing Series race at Pocono on Saturday.
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