Sunday (6/3) Martin Truex Jr. rallied back from a pit stop miscue to score the win at the Pocono Raceway in NASCAR‘s Pocono 400.
When the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races at the track known as the “Tricky Triangle” it is always a challenge for drivers and teams. The track has only three turns and none is like the others. That makes getting the cars to handle well through all three a turns nearly impossible.
Early in Sunday afternoon’s race Kevin Harvick made a statement that he was going to be a contender for the race win as he led the race often. In fact, Kevin led a race high 89 of the 160 laps of the Pocono 400. That was almost three times more than any of the other six drivers that exchanged the lead 11 times.
The first two stages of the race were incident free as the drivers raced hard, but kept their cars under control. Martin Truex Jr. let everybody know he was going to do his best to win the race as he managed to be the lead car at the end of stage one of the race. However, a very slow pit stop due to a small mistake by his crew put him back in the pack with the need to race back through the field to the front of the field. Kevin Harvick was the winner of stage two of the race.
In the third and final stage of the race there were four caution periods due to something on the track, either debris or cars having incidents. Martin Truex Jr. was able to use those caution flags and a very fast car to get back into position to contend for the win. Martin was able to rocket out to the lead on the final re-start of the race and remain there to capture the win, his second career win at Pocono Raceway and his second win of the 2018 season.
Kyle Larson came on strong most of the race and was able to capture a second place finish. Kyle Busch was strong all race long as well and claimed the third place finish. Kevin Harvick was able to claim the fourth place finish with Brad Keselowski rounding out the top five. See the complete race results for the Pocono 400 here.
Kyle Busch held on to the point lead with Kevin Harvick moving up a spot to second place and Joey Logano slipping back a spot to third. Martin Truex Jr. (up to fourth place) and Brad Keselowski (back to fifth place) also swapped spots in the standings after the Pocono race. See the complete Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series point standings here.
This week there’s no tricky shaped track to deal with, just high speeds and drafting for the win at Michigan International Speedway in the FireKeepers Casino 400 Sunday, June 10th.
By: Buck Stevens
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