There was no shortage of people electing to pick a driver to dominate Monday morning’s NASCAR Truck Series race at Bristol, although most weren’t picking Martin Truex Jr. to win it.
The 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion took the win on the converted dirt track to start off the day, as part of a few Cup drivers racing to gain experience on it.
“Yeah it’s unbelievable really,” Truex Jr. said on the broadcast. “I guess they had to put dirt on Bristol to get me back to victory lane here. Man, that was a blast.”
The win is Truex Jr.’s first career Truck Series victory, but really comes in surprise from his background as Truex Jr. hadn’t raced dirt more than two previous times in his life.
His Kyle Busch Motorsports truck was just dialed in. He swept both stages and of course took the race win.
“I wanted to run this race to get more experience for the cup car,” Truex Jr. said on the broadcast. “We got out to practice and it felt really good, we just kept working on it.”
The veteran had to beat out Ben Rhodes, the winner of two races already this season in the series, to get the win.
Rhodes missed a shift on the restart and called it the worst restart of his life, leaving him a second behind Truex Jr. from the start of the final run, giving him no chance at making a run at the No. 51.
Kyle Larson looked to have a promising truck early in the race, but as the track changed, Larson’s team couldn’t make the adjustments to improve, and he ended up colliding with Mike Marlar to end his day.
The race, filled with a multitude of cautions, also got John Hunter Nemechek to throw some words at Matt Crafton, after an early crash in the race.
While yellow’s took out a number of names, it prevented many drivers from making charges through the field aside from the first stage where Larson and Bubba Wallace both made it work to an extent.
Although we learned that setup will still matter in this race, there isn’t a clearer take-away to take into the Cup Series race this afternoon.
“It will just depend what they do with the track,” Truex Jr. said.
NASCAR Truck Series Results
Pinty’s Truck Race on Dirt
1. Martin Truex Jr.
2. Ben Rhodes
3. Raphael Lessard
4. Todd Gilliland
5. Chase Briscoe
6. Grant Enfinger
7. Zane Smith
8. Parker Kligerman
9. Austin Hill
10. Austin Wayne Self
11. Bubba Wallace
12. Stewart Friesen
13. Tanner Gray
14. Matt Crafton
15. Kevin Harvick
16. Sheldon Creed
17. Daniel Suarez
18. Chase Purdy
19. Hailie Deegan
20. Ryan Truex
21. Carson Hocevar
22. Myatt Snider
23. Tate Fogleman
24. Brett Moffitt
25. Spencer Boyd
26. Cody Erickson
27. Codie Rohrbaugh
28. Mike Marlar
29. Jake Griffin
30. Timothy Peters
31. Andrew Gordon
32. Johnny Sauter
33. Jennifer Jo Cobb
34. Chandler Smith
35. Kyle Larson
36. Danny Bohn
37. Norm Benning
38. Derek Kraus
39. John Hunter Nemechek
40. Tyler Ankrum
