LDN - Sports

Truex captures Southern 500

[September 06, 2016] DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Martin Truex Jr. claimed his second win of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season Sunday night with a victory in the Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

It was Truex's first career Southern 500 win and the second for his Furniture Row Racing team.

"This is unbelievable," Truex said. "I've always loved this race track. I've led a lot of laps here in my career. Just couldn't be more excited to win at Darlington. Southern 500 -- been wanting to win this thing for a long time."

Kevin Harvick finished second, and Kyle Larson was third. Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano rounded out the top five.

"It just doesn't matter if it isn't a win," Logano said. "At this point, I guess momentum means something, so I guess something matters. I disagree that I didn't have anything for them. I did on the long run.

"We were the fastest car on the long run every time. We hit a lot of short runs at the end, and that would kill us. I lost two or three spots every restart for the first five or six laps, and then it would kick in and off I would go. I was fighting to get them back."

Truex took the lead for the first time with just over 25 laps remaining and ran up front the remaining distance.

Harvick led a race-high 214 laps of the 367 that made up the race, but problems on pit road put him outside the top 10 for a brief time. In all, Harvick lost a total of 17 positions on pit road.

"Our team in the garage did a great job. They brought the fastest race car to the track once again, and we just didn't do a good job on pit road and gave it away," Harvick said. "We started 12th and eighth and sixth, and we had a great race car all night. Just got to thank everybody in the shop and in the garage for putting the race cars under us. We can't just continuously shoot ourselves in the foot every few pit stops."

The worst stop for his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team came during a caution with just under 90 laps remaining. Harvick pitted with the race lead but came out 12th because of an air-gun malfunction.

Hamlin was first off pit road during the yellow flag but lost the lead to Larson soon after the restart. By the time the yellow flag waved again with just under 50 laps remaining, Harvick was up to fifth.

Truex beat Larson off pit road during a caution with 40 laps remaining, but Ryan Newman and Brad Keselowski stayed out to restart on the front row. Truex got up to second on the restart and ran there for several laps before finally getting by Newman with 25 laps remaining.

Two laps later, Harvick also got by Newman for second. But by that time, Truex had a lead of more than three seconds.

The yellow flag waved one additional time, the 10th time in the race, on lap 349. Truex and Harvick entered the pits in the top two spots and came out of the pits in the same order. Larson took second from Harvick on the restart, but Harvick quickly got back by to retake the second spot for good.

Harvick was the leader at the halfway point. Keselowski ran second, Chase Elliott was third, and Logano and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five.

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Harvick reclaimed the lead from Keselowski on lap 144 and began pulling away from the rest of the field. He gave up the lead to pit on lap 163, but by the time the cycle of green-flag stops completed on lap 165, he was back up front.

After starting on the pole, Harvick dominated until the yellow flag waved, interrupting a cycle of green-flag pit stops on lap 94 for a spin by Trevor Bayne.

With most cars already having pitted before the yellow flag, only three drivers -- Keselowski, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Elliott -- were scored as the top-three and the only drivers on the lead lap at the time of caution, still needing to pit.

When they pitted, 17 other cars remained on-track to take a wave-around and get back on the lead lap. Harvick restarted fifth behind Keselowski, Stenhouse, Elliott and Chris Buescher.

Those getting back on the lead lap by virtue of the wave-around restarted at the tail end of the field, giving the front-running cars a significant cushion.

That cushion, though, was erased by a second caution for Brian Scott and Casey Mears on lap 115.

The field first cycled through green-flag stops just before lap 50.

By the time Harvick pitted, he had a large enough lead that he managed to maintain that lead throughout the cycle. By the time the cycle completed on lap 53, he had a cushion of nearly a straightaway over second-place-running Keselowski.

After the race, the cars of Larson and Newman, who came in eighth place, failed laser inspections. According to NASCAR, any penalties that result from the violations will be announced mid-week.

NOTES: A modification in the weekend schedule because of severe weather on Friday resulted in the cancellation of qualifying, putting Kevin Harvick on the pole and Brad Keselowski next to him on the front row by virtue of the points standings. ... Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to sit out because of a concussion. He announced earlier in the week he'd sit out the remainder of the season. Jeff Gordon subbed for him at Darlington. ... Of the drivers in Sunday's race, Jeff Gordon is the Darlington wins leader with seven victories, seven of those coming in the Southern 500. He claimed three straight wins at the track between 1995 and 1996. ... Tony Stewart's Coca-Cola Bobby Allison retro paint scheme was voted best during the Southern 500 throwback weekend. ... Denny Hamlin was the highest finisher among six Sprint Cup Series regulars who competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington on Saturday, finishing second. ... Carl Edwards won the 2015 Southern 500.

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