Martin Truex Jr. Scores Tried and True New Hampshire Victory at Last

Martin Truex Jr. has finally won a NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)

LOUDON, N.H. – Persistence and determination paid off for Martin Truex Jr. with his quest to win a NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

It was a long road for the 43-year-old racer getting from there in Mayetta, New Jersey to here in Loudon, New Hampshire. Although it took a long, 17 years before his time was finally near, he had faith of his heart about achieving this special feat.

As a young boy who watched his namesake father, Martin Truex, compete as a Busch North competitor in the 1990s and early 2000s, he too hoped to make magic happen at “The Magic Mile.” The 1.058-mile was the Busch North’s version of Daytona, a marvelous stock car oval for competitors in the Northeast.

In 2023, the younger Truex has made a name for himself as a formidable, consistent frontrunner in the Cup Series. Prior to Monday’s better late than never Crayon 301, the 2017 Cup champion achieved plentiful accolades with 33 points paying wins and a 2023 Busch Light Clash victory at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Even with wins in the Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500, Truex longed for a victory at the New Hampshire oval. Entering Monday’s race with a record of 0-29, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver wanted to break through in the worst way possible.

Starting from the second position in the No. 19 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota Camry, Truex wasted little time to take the lead, passing by pole sitter Christopher Bell on Lap 2. Save for an early race shuffle due to a caution for AJ Allmendinger’s Turn 2 spin on Lap 29, Truex held onto the lead from Laps 43 to 164, easily winning Stages 1 and 2.

While Truex’s competitors tried different pit strategies to get ahead of the distinct No. 19 white, black and red Camry, it was all for naught. Joey Logano and Kyle Larson, the two most recent Cup champions, did not have answers to outwit and outperform the longtime Toyota racer.

The statistics illustrate how Truex had a truly masterclass performance at New Hampshire, leading 254 total laps or nearly 85 percent of the race. Unlike those previous 29 efforts, a questionable pit strategy, dust up with another competitor nor Mother Nature would derail the honorary New Englander from triumphing in The Granite State.

At long last, Truex won a Cup race at New Hampshire, besting Logano by 0.396 seconds. Celebrating in epic fashion with an emphatic frontstretch burnout and playful bite of the lobster in Victory Lane, the championship contender praised the motorsports deities.

Truex was savvy and smooth at New Hampshire. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)

“Man, I hate to say it, that it’s a Monday thing, but Mondays sure have been good to us,” Truex said. “I don’t know, I think we could have won yesterday if it didn’t rain, but you never know. The racing gods do funny things at times. Just glad we could put it together, honestly. Stage 3 came around and I’m like, all right, what’s going to happen. It all went to plan.

“We never got — the field never really flipped on strategy. We were always able to be at least equal tires to the guys around us or better. That’s really the difference from last year to this year, was just making the right decisions and the cautions not falling at inopportune times to put us in a bad spot.”

As fortunate and dominant as Truex was on Monday afternoon, Logano had an equally rewarding day. Despite initially mentioning how placing runner up “really sucks,” the driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang considered the big picture.

“The guys did a good job putting us in position and making our car better throughout the race,” Logano said. “It got to where we could run in the top two. But we weren’t quite as good as the 19. The 19 was better on the long haul. I thought that I could maybe beat him. It seemed like I had a shot at it two cautions to the end which was our first re-fire when everybody put two tires.

“I thought I was going to have a shot into (Turn 3). He was still running the bottom. And I thought I could maybe sneak to his outside before he got there and have a run at it. And the caution came out. And then he re-fired better once the pressures were up on the next two restarts. So it just kind of took my chance away. We’ve still got a lot of work to do to catch the Toyotas, that’s the bottom line.”

Kyle Larson rounded out the podium finishers with a performance that initially surprised him after so-so Saturday practice and qualifying performances. Overall, he was pleased to lead the way for Chevrolet and his Hendrick Motorsports brigade.

Larson drove from 15th to third in Monday’s 301-lap race. (Photo: Josh Jones | The Podium Finish)

“Honestly, in my career, short tracks have been the worst,” Larson said. “This year, every time we go to a short track, we’ve got a really great car. I’ve won a lot of them and I’ve been third in this, fourth at Phoenix, so it’s been good. So just hats off to Hendrick Motorsports.

“It didn’t seem like the teammates didn’t fare really well today. Hopefully, they can look at our notes if we were much different and learn something from that and make their stuff better coming back.”

In the meantime, it may seem a bit insulting to label this year as a comeback for Truex and his No. 19 team after a trying campaign. Then again, it may be a return to championship contending form as seen in 2017.

Ultimately, contrary to how things may have seemed in the spring, Truex extinguished any doubts about his rapport and relationship with his crew chief James Small, citing how their chemistry is as strong as can be.

It was a sweet, sweet victory for Truex and the No. 19 team. (Photo: Josh Jones | The Podium Finish)

“I think James and I have always had a great relationship, have always gelled and worked really well together, understand each other,” Truex said. “Last year was just one of those years where we had a lot working against us. But we learned a lot, and now we’ve got better race cars. We have a better understanding of them, and that consistency that we’ve shown and the ability to lead laps and win races is proof of that.

“We never changed a thing with our team, our people, our process, the way we did things. We just have better cars, better understanding of our cars, and showing up to the racetrack ready to roll with a lot of speed this year.”

Stage 1 Top 10 Results

1. Martin Truex Jr.
2. William Byron
3. Tyler Reddick
4. Aric Almirola
5. Ryan Blaney
6. Christopher Bell
7. Denny Hamlin
8. Daniel Suárez
9. Joey Logano
10. Michael McDowell

Stage 2 Top 10 Results

1. Martin Truex Jr.
2. Kyle Larson
3. Joey Logano
4. Ryan Blaney
5. Denny Hamlin
6. Kevin Harvick
7. Alex Bowman
8. Brad Keselowski
9. Tyler Reddick
10. Christopher Bell

Crayon 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Race Results

Editor’s Notes

Nathan Solomon contributed to this article on site from New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire.