LONG POND, Pennsylvania — Martin Truex Jr. led the most laps in the Axalta We Paint Winners 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway on Sunday, and he turned those laps led into a win, his first of the season.
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.