September 22, 2019 | By Lee Spencer

It's a clean sweep for Truex at Richmond in 2019

RICHMOND, Va.—Martin Truex Jr. led a parade of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas to a 1-2-3-4 finish at Richmond Raceway on Saturday—the first time the organization swept the top-four positions in the company’s 28-year existence.

Unfortunately, the fourth-place run for Jones was short-lived after the No. 20 Toyota failed post-race inspection in the optical scanning station (OSS). The infraction marked the first disqualification in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and sixth DQ throughout the top three touring series. Jones dropped to 16th in the Cup standings, 45 points outside of 12th.

Still, Truex’s victory led to a sweep at the .75-mile track in 2019 as well as winning back-to-back in the Playoffs. Truex extended his lead in the standings by 23 points over Kevin Harvick with his sixth win of the year and the 25th of his career.

“Yeah, that’s unbelievable,” Truex said. “That’s never happened to me in my whole racing career. Thanks to all the fans who came out tonight and thanks to everyone on this team, Bass Pro Shops, our Camry was really fast tonight. It takes a lot of people to make this happen. 

“I felt pretty good coming into this race. We’ve had a lot of heartbreakers over the years in Richmond. To come here and sweep this year…it must have been meant to be. Hopefully, we can keep this up. We came here to get bonus points and we sure as hell did it.”

Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Newman, Kyle Larson, Harvick, Bowyer and Daniel Suarez rounded out the top 10. 

Polesitter Keselowski led the first 53 laps until Truex caught him and made the pass in Turn 2. Truex held on for the Stage 1 win—his fifth on the season and lapping fellow Playoff contenders Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, William Byron and Joey Logano in the process.

Kyle Busch won the battle off of pit road and led the field to green—but the action was short-lived after Austin Dillon spun Bowman in Turn 4. Bowman, who was already struggling and running 23rd, dropped to 32nd after repairs on pit road. 

“He just races dumb,” Bowman said of Dillon. “It’s Richmond. It’s hard to not race dumb sometimes. But I don’t know. He drove me all the way to the inside wall on the restart and then drove into (Turn) 3 and just cleaned us out. Frustrating, but that’s just short track racing and you’ll have that.”

When asked whether he would gift Dillon with the silver spoon he promised over the radio, Bowman quipped, “No. I think he has plenty of those.”

Busch held on for the Stage 2 win—his 11th of the season.

The No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew executed a flawless stop between stages that enabled Busch to retain the lead. He led 142 circuits on that run before Reed Sorenson spun in Turn 2 on Lap 243 to trigger the fourth caution.

Keselowski regained the lead out of the pits until Truex passed him 33 laps later. Green flag pit stops started with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on Lap 311. When Stenhouse returned to the track with fresh tires, he clipped Truex and sent the No. 19 Toyota for a spin in Turn 4. After the smoke cleared, Truex dropped to fourth before the lead cars pitted for their final stop. 

“My first thought was what the hell,” Truex said with a laugh. “Then it was just, keep the car out of the wall…It definitely added drama to the race.”

Truex fell to fourth turning over the lead to Busch entering the pits. Busch held onto the lead followed by Hamlin, Truex, Larson, Keselowski, Newman, Jones, Bowyer and Harvick. With less than 50 laps to decide the Federated Auto Parts 400, Truex passed Hamlin for second and set his sights on Busch. On Lap 360, Jones gave Newman a nudge and moved up to fifth.

Truex caught the No. 18 with 30 laps to go and finally completed the pass for the lead on Lap 375.

“I don't think we were as good as him all night long,” said Busch, who trails Truex by 24 points. “Martin, the car, the combination thereof, us, the combination of, just lacked a little bit. You know, like the 11 (Hamlin) lacked a little bit more than us. Just weird, I don't know.               

“We led a lot of laps. We were up front a lot. But when I was out front, he could keep the closest distance to me. That kind of worried me for a finish like that in the long run. But our M&M's guys did a great job, and we brought a fast race car here to Richmond, and I think all the JGR cars were pretty respectable there, so really awesome job by everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota, and being able to have some really good pieces to go out there and race with.” 

Truex extended his lead to 2.630-seconds over the final 26 laps. 

“You just don’t want to screw up and get into each other,” Truex said. “I’ve got so much respect for Kyle and Denny. They are great teammates, Erik as well. We can race hard, but we race clean. We kind of threw that out there tonight and showed everybody we can do it. 

“Those guys did a great job. They were really fast all night. It was going to come down to whoever could hit it right in the end. Fortunately, we were able to do it right. Lots of fun to race with those guys. Hopefully, we can take it all the way to Homestead and put all four in there.”