Martin Truex Jr. surges into championship picture with deft pit-stop fake-out
SONOMA, Calif. — If Martin Truex Jr. wins the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship for a second consecutive year, chances are he’ll have to run over, past or through Kevin Harvick to get there.
On a splendid race day Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, Truex got some excellent practice. He and his Furniture Row Racing teammates put a whipping on Harvick in a race either team could have won. Truex won it and won it big, finishing a full 10 seconds — in NASCAR racing, a virtual calendar page — in front of Harvick after some nifty dance moves by his team on pit road.
Sunday’s win was the sort of smart, strategic victory often scored by Harvick and his crew chief, Rodney Childers. The fact that Truex and his crew chief, Cole Pearn, outmaneuvered them in a battle of equals Sunday hints that Truex, after a relatively slow start, should be as much a part of the championship battle as Harvick and Kyle Busch, the season’s other alpha.
Although Truex certainly was fast Sunday, it wasn’t speed that won this race. As is sometimes the case at road courses, the hard work occurred in the head of crew chiefs plotting strategy.
Pearn won that race over Childers in a match of two of racing’s best crew chiefs.
The big move came in the final stage as Truex, Harvick and Clint Bowyer, Harvick’s teammate, battled at the front. Pearn instructed his crew members to prepare for a pit stop and told Truex via the team radio to pit the next time by. But all that changed. Truex stayed on the track. Harvick and Bowyer, trying to keep pace with the apparent strategy of the Truex team, pitted, convinced that Truex would.
Truex then was able to pit several laps later and finished the race with much fresher tires. Barring a caution, there was no chance Harvick and Bowyer would catch him.
There was no caution. Truex rolled home like a tourist on a Sunday drive down the coast.
Truex said he leaves critical race decisions to Pearn, having learned not to challenge the ideas of one of pit road’s best thinkers.
"I knew the situation I was in," Truex said. "It worked out good. When he said pit then said stay out, I wasn’t sure what was going on, to be honest. I just did what he said."
Beating Harvick and Childers is no small thing. Harvick has five wins this year, more than any other driver. Sunday’s victory was the third for Truex. Busch has four.
"We feel great when beat him — not only him but his whole team," Truex said of Harvick. "They do an amazing job. They’re great competitors. They’re going to be tough all season long. Any time you can beat those guys, it feels good."
What if Pearn had not inserted his strategic move?
"It was going to be a hell of a battle," Truex said. "When you come out on top with those guys, you know you beat the best."
Childers, who admitted that his team had been "faked out" by Pearn and company, stopped by victory lane to congratulate the winners. Childers is rarely anything but a class act, in victory and defeat.
He left the racetrack Sunday, backpack slung over one shoulder, no doubt pondering the sort of slick moves he might pull out of his bag as the season rolls through the hot and trying summer months.
Follow Mike Hembree on Twitter @mikehembree.
