Martin Truex Jr. has always had a knack for Kansas Speedway but until Saturday night he had nothing to show for it.
In his 18th attempt, Truex finally broke down the door with a dominating performance in the Go Bowling 400. Holding off polesitter Ryan Blaney on a restart with two laps to go, Truex led 104 laps en route to his second win of the season and the ninth of his career.
It was also redemption for the Furniture Row Racing driver, after he lost the race a year ago (after starting on the pole and led 172 laps) on the final pit stop because of a screw becoming lodged between the wheel and the hub.
This time around, Truex just needed to overcome a rash of cautions inside the final 10 laps. His career total is now 622 laps led at Kansas with six top-five finishes and one victory.
"It feels great," Truex said. "It's definitely been a thorn in our side, that's for sure. You know for years and years even before I was with this team, for whatever reason we always ran good here and never could close the deal. Proud to get these guys back in victory lane.
"This is our home racetrack – the guys from Colorado. Appreciate all the fans. We got a lot of fans from Colorado here today. I met a bunch of them before the race and hopefully they’re all psyched."
After losing the lead to Truex with 25 laps to go, Blaney took it back on the race’s final pit stops. But a restart with 19 laps to go saw Truex go from third to the lead when he split the middle between Blaney – who was on the inside – and his teammate Erik Jones, on the outside. Blaney led 83 laps but faded to a fourth-place finish.
"We weren’t very good on the long run," Blaney said. "I felt that we had a great short run car tonight and I thought that was going to play right into our hands at the end. The 78 (Truex) got us on that restart somehow. I don’t know.
Blaney battles Truex (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)"I was super loose there on the last restarts and the 78 got me spinning my tires a little bit. It kind of stinks. I think that it says a lot about this team to go out and lead some laps and go have a shot and win races."
Brad Keselowski finished second and Kevin Harvick finished third. Kyle Busch completed the top five.
The event featured 21 lead changes among nine drivers and 15 cautions, the scariest incident occurring on Lap 200 with an accident between Joey Logano, Danica Patrick, and Aric Almirola. Logano suffered a failure in his No. 22 Ford going into Turn 1 and collected Patrick, before Almirola piled in.
Almirola was cut out of his Ford and was airlifted to the University of Kansas Medical Center. He is being held overnight for observation.
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