(Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
DOVER, Del. — For the first time in his long NASCAR career, Ryan Truex is on top. The 31-year-old journeyman dominated, leading 124 laps and sweeping the stages to win the A-GAME 200 at Dover Motor Speedway. It’s the first time the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has won in 189 national series starts.
“I’ve dreamed a lot over the years of wins,” Truex said after the race. “I daydream about ‘alright, this is going to be the one’ and I think about how I’m going to come across the line, do burnouts, jump out of the car — and it’s never happened. I’ve had to throttle back on that and be realistic with myself, almost to the point where I’ve been pretty pessimistic about everything.
“Leading a lot of laps and winning both stages feels a lot better than just pulling it out in the last corner.”
Based on the qualifying formula because qualifying was canceled, Truex started Saturday’s race in 12th. After Anthony Alfredo stalled on the track on Lap 20, Truex pitted under yellow and drove to the lead on Lap 33. He held the lead until pitting at the stage end, when Kyle Weatherman, who stayed out during the break on old tires, took over the top spot.
In Turn 1 on the restart, Truex quickly snagged back the lead and kept it at the point to finish Stage 2.
Truex, however, had to hold his breath in the final stage. The Richard Childress Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing cars were on different pit sequences after staying out on Lap 20, meaning they had extra fuel and could run longer under green.
Truex made his final stop on Lap 168 and blended in a lap down. On fresher tires, Truex passed leader Sheldon Creed on Lap 188 to return to the lead lap as Creed hoped for a caution. The race, however, stayed green and Creed needed to come down pit road.
“I guess we couldn’t make it fuel and just came down and splashed it,” Creed said. “If a caution came out, I think we win the race.”
Instead, Truex took back the lead with 10 laps to go and brought it back clean for a win in front of his hometown crowd — a trend that runs in the family. His brother, 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr., scored his first Cup victory at Dover in 2007.
“It’s cool to do it and make a statement like that at one of the hardest tracks on the schedule,” Ryan Truex said. “I’ve had this one circled for a while.
“I think I held my breath for 30 laps at the end. When I got out, I was completely out of breath because I was just like alright, what’s going to happen this time? What’s going to be the flat tire of the two guys running into each other? What was going to happen to bring that late caution out? I knew we were in control of the race and I knew we had a big lead. I was just trying to manage the gap.
“I was definitely waiting for something [bad] to happen, and luckily, it didn’t.”
Ryan Truex scored his first career NASCAR victory on Saturday. (Photo: Josh Jones | The Podium Finish)
Josh Berry, the winner of last year’s race, ended up with a second-place finish. He finished the stages in fifth and 10th respectively before cycling toward the front in the closing laps, but admitted that he couldn’t maneuver as well as he did in 2022.
“It seems like the cars don’t work quite as well in traffic as they did last year, it’s just harder to pass,” Berry said. “We fought back in the final stage, made good adjustments … seemed like we were holding pace to [Truex], but it seemed like he was probably the best car anyway.”
Cole Custer came across seventh to secure the final $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. He beat out Parker Kligerman, Sheldon Creed and Jeb Burton to win the event for the second week in a row.
“To win 200 grand in two weeks is huge for our team and a huge accomplishment,” Custer said. “We’ve been starting to put it together. We want more, we want to win and I think we’re capable of it. It’s just a matter of it all coming together.”
Kligerman, who started on the pole, made an early exit on Lap 64. While exiting Turn 2, Corey Heim made contact with the 32-year-old and sent him spinning into the inside wall. He was running 18th after starting the race on the pole from the qualifying metric.
“We kind of just got run over a little bit,” Kligerman said. “I think anyone could see that we were struggling, so just give me a corner and don’t drive into my left rear.”
Results
STAGE 1: Ryan Truex, John Hunter Nemechek, Sheldon Creed, Austin Hill, Josh Berry, Brandon Jones, Sammy Smith, Cole Custer, Daniel Hemric, Chandler Smith.
STAGE 2: Ryan Truex, Austin Hill, John Hunter Nemechek, Justin Allgaier, Cole Custer, Chandler Smith, Sheldon Creed, Sammy Smith, Sam Mayer, Josh Berry
FINAL: Ryan Truex, Josh Berry, Justin Allgaier, Austin Hill, John Hunter Nemechek, Sammy Smith, Cole Custer, Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer, Daniel Hemric
