Truex, Jr. may not have dominated the race at Darlington quite so much, but he still hoisted the big trophy at the end of the night. And that’s all that counts in today’s “win-and-in” edition of NASCAR.
So do we expect Truex to dominate the postseason and win nearly every week? Are we gearing up for a Chase run like the one we saw from Tony Stewart back in 2011, the year Smoke cranked up the aggression meter to score five victories en route to his third (and final) Sprint Cup championship? It’s not like older drivers are incapable of scoring big, late-season wins. Harken back to 1991 and you’ll recall that “Handsome” Harry Gant notched five of them at the ripe old age of 51. That total included four in a row beginning with the Southern 500 at Darlington in September.
One of Gant’s end-of-the-year wins in 1991 came at Dover, too, just like Truex, Jr.’s most recent success (Gant's win was far more dominant than Truex's; he won by a lap and 19 additional seconds). That year, Gant also won the fall race at Martinsville (I’m not predicting; I’m just reporting).
It’s odd that we’re considering Martin Truex, Jr. “old” at the age of 36. Maybe his success stems from more than the experience provided by Father Time – maybe it’s been fueled by more than a decade with NASCAR teams running at various levels of staffing, sponsorship, and overall ability? The woes of Michael Waltrip Racing and the “Spingate” debacle at Richmond several years ago come to mind. This veteran seems to have rebounded nicely after that mess.
And now, here we are, paying close attention to a 36-year-old NASCAR racer from New Jersey who drives for a team based in Denver, Colorado. As we watch the rest of the Chase for the 2016 Sprint Cup Championship unfold, we should remember that expectations are fickle things. What we see is not always what we get.
Sometimes, we get even more….
Dr. Mark Howell is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at mho...@nmc.edu. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Numbers Game: Citizen Soldier 400
by Tom Bowles
0
Incidents during the first three rounds of the Chase have involved more than one car. So far, we have 14 total cautions in the first three races of the Chase, an average of 4.7 and roughly one-third of them have been for debris.
1
Track where Martin Truex, Jr. has won twice in his Sprint Cup career; Dover made the list after his victory Sunday. The track also served as Truex's first ever Sprint Cup victory back in the spring of 2007.
1
Driver left in the Chase who isn't running a chassis built by Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing or Team Penske (the top teams for Chevrolet, Toyota, and Ford, respectively). Austin Dillon remains in the field, still winless this season piloting a car whose chassis is built by Richard Childress Racing.
1
Chase driver who recorded a DNF in the first round of the Chase. Jamie McMurray blew an engine at Dover and finished dead last (40th). Overall, during the first three Chase races there have been a total of four cars who failed to finish, three of them with mechanical problems.
2
Times in three races Jimmie Johnson and his crew have suffered a penalty on pit road during the Chase. Both of those times, he was leading the event.
Chicagoland - pit road speeding
Dover - too many men over the wall
3
Straight races in which Johnson has failed to win a Cup race at Dover. That's the longest drought for him since failing to win there between the fall of 2005 and the spring of 2009.
5.8
Average start for Denny Hamlin so far this season, easily a career best and a number that leads the Cup Series. Hamlin, seventh at Dover ran ninth in Sunday's race.
6.3
Average finish for rookie Chase Elliott competing in his first ever Chase for the championship. That easily beat the other three first timers competing (Dillon, Kyle Larson, and Chris Buescher).
26.8
Average finish for Buescher this season for Front Row Motorsports. For comparison's sake, David Ragan had a 26.9 average finish for the season the last year FRM's No. 34 car won a race (2013).
202
Laps of green-flag racing to finish the event at Dover Sunday. That was the longest stretch we've seen at the track since Mark Martin won a race there that had just one caution in the fall of 1997. That race went over 300 laps caution free and finished with just four cars on the lead lap.
6
The number of cars to finish on the lead lap Sunday. That's the fewest in the era of NASCAR's "free pass," freezing the field under caution and letting at least one car get a lap back every yellow flag (adopted in 2003).
360
Laps led by Truex so far during this Chase. Jimmie Johnson is second in that category with 208; no one else is even close.
Tom Bowles is the Editor-in-Chief of Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at tbow...@yahoo.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~