April 11, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Truex puts the "Martin" in Martinsville

Martin Truex Jr. remembers a time when winning a Martinsville grandfather clock was just wishful thinking.

Now, he was three.

On Sunday, Truex scored his third victory in the last four races at Martinsville Speedway and became the first driver to win twice in 2021.

“There was a time when I thought there was no chance in hell I’d have a clock,” Truex said. “So to have three and to have a shot at even more than that has been amazing.

“This is unbelievable. This place has become a playground for us I guess. We didn’t have the best car all day, but we just kept working on it and never quit on it. Proud of James (Small, crew chief) and all the guys. This Bass Pro/Tracker Toyota Camry came on at the end and that’s when it counts. There’s something about when the lights come on here, we’re really good so that was cool.”

Truex’s No. 19 Toyota came to life as the sun set on the half-mile Virginia track. Despite watching Denny Hamlin—his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate—dominate the half of the Blue Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500, Truex took command with 15 laps to go.

“It was good, hard, clean hard racing,” Truex said. “He (Hamlin) was getting tight. I couldn’t get the power down so we kind of had opposite things going on there. I could get inside of him, but I couldn’t clear him, he could get the power down on me. It was a fun battle and it was a clean battle.

“Coach (Joe Gibbs, team owner) will be happy tomorrow. We didn’t make each other mad or do anything stupid.”

Chase Elliott, who broke Truex’s Martinsville streak last November, finished second. Hamlin, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch rounded out the top 10.

The race was delayed after rain halted the action Saturday night after just 42 laps. Of the 15 cautions that slowed the race, only six occurred leading into the end of stage 2 on Lap 262.

Ryan Blaney was strong early. He won the first two stages—the second and third stage wins this season—and led the second-most laps, 157. But Hamlin took the lead out of the pits to start the final stage and continued to show the way.

A rash of accidents slowed progress in the final stage. Multiple spins by a variety of drivers including Justin Haley, Cody Ware, Kyle Busch, Anthony Alfredo and Ryan Newman, slowed the pace in the second half. However, the top candidate for the highlight reel occurred when Chris Buescher became loose off of Turn 2 and slid up into Kyle Busch on Lap 386. Both cars turned sideways, clogged the track and collected 10 additional drivers in the process. NASCAR red-flagged the track for 21 minutes and 47 seconds.

Hamlin continued his march when the race returned to green on Lap 396. Blaney pursued the No. 11 Toyota over the next 66 laps until Chase Briscoe brought out the 15th and final caution with his spin in Turn 3. Blaney led one more lap on pit road. But his hopes for a second win evaporated when one of his crew dropped an airgun and Blaney dragged the equipment from the pits. He was forced to drop to 19th and finished 11th.

Truex took the lead for the first time out of the pits, but Hamlin regained the lead on the Lap 459 restart. Hamlin used every trick in his arsenal but couldn’t find a way to stop Truex’s run.

“I thought it was a matter of time,” Hamlin said. “With about 25 to go or so, he already got into my rear bumper, kind of beating the back end off. It was just a matter of time. The only hope, we had an extra set of tires over everyone. Hell, we would have pitted, taken tires, restarted 20th. That wasn't going to work either.

“Tough to say. We weren't stuck in a box where we could make good on a long run. The reason we led so many laps is we had a lot of short runs, great starts in the middle of the race, not much green flag racing. When we had green flag racing, again, we were fast a little time, not a lot of time.”

The Joe Gibbs Racing teammates battled side-by-side with Truex finally clearing the No. 11 Toyota. Five laps later, Elliott moved by Hamlin for second. Although Hamlin finished third—his 16th top-five finish at Martinsville—he extended his points lead by 76 over Truex.

Before 2019, Truex had never won at a short track. Now, five of his 29 Cup victories were collected between Martinsville and Richmond. What’s the secret?

“Just continuing to work with my team on the cars and the setups,” Truex said. “They’ve been able to make the cars do what I need them to do and that was something I’ve been missing for a long time. Great race cars.

“We keep tweaking on it and tweaking on it. For a while there, I’m like, “Man, maybe we shouldn’t have done a few of the thing that we did,’ but here we are.”