Race report
NASCAR Cup Dover
Martin Truex Jr. comes from the back to take dominant Dover win
Martin Truex’s victory at Dover (Del.) International Speedway on Monday came a day late and required a long journey from the rear of the field.
Jim Utter
Edited: May 6, 2019, 8:52 PM
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With Sunday’s GanderRV 400 postponed due to rain, Truex still had to begin his journey on Monday from the rear of the field after his No. 19 Toyota failed pre-race inspection twice on Sunday.
It took him some time to make his way to the front of the field, but once he did, he never ventured far, winning Stage 2 and easily holding off Alex Bowman to pick up his second win of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
"Man, it feels incredible. I'm so thankful for this team. What a race car we had today," Truex said after the race. "We have one hell of a team. We came here with a new set-up this time because we kind of had an older set-up than had worked good for several years but it was't good enough.
"Thanks to all these fans that came out today, on a Monday. It's just awesome."
Reminded he started from the back of the field and ended up winning by more than nine seconds, Truex said, "I promise it wasn't easy. It was a lot of work, it was tough. This race car, man, it was just incredible.
"I can't believe if we'd have won at Talladega, we'd have three in a row. A new group of guys this year, Coach (Joe Gibbs) put together a good bunch with (crew chief) Cole (Pearn) and everybody. I'm just really, really proud."
The victory is the 21st of Truex’s career and his third at Dover. Coincidentally, his first career win came at Dover in 2007 in a race postponed until Monday.
Kyle Larson finished third, Kevin Harvick was fourth and Chase Elliott completed the top-five.
Rounding out the top-10 were Erik Jones, Joey Logano, William Byron, Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch.
Busch is the only driver to finish in the top-10 in the first 11 races of the season, tying a record set in 1990 by Morgan Shepherd.
Stage 3
Following the break between Stages 2 and 3, all of the lead-lap cars elected to pit with Truex was the first off of pit road followed by Bowman, Harvick, Elliott and Brad Keselowski.
The race returned to green on Lap 250.
Kyle Busch tagged the wall on Lap 252 and immediately yelled, “We’ll be done. See you in a few laps,” over his team radio.
On Lap 265, Denny Hamlin spun on the track in Turn 2 after tagging the wall and having a tire go down. There was extensive damage to right-rear of his No. 11 Toyota. Only a handful of cars elected to pit.
On the restart on Lap 270, Truex remained in the lead, followed by Bowman, Elliott, Harvick and Ryan Blaney.
With 100 laps to go in the race, Harvick remained within a second of Truex. Bowman was third, Larson fourth and Elliott ran fifth.
A round of green-flag pit stops began on Lap 320 with Larson, Harvick and Truex among the first to make what could be their final stop for fuel and tires.
Ryan Preece was penalized for an uncontrolled tire during his stop and had to make a pass-thru penalty on pit road.
Daniel Suarez was the last of the cars to pit – and had the entire field at least one lap down at one point. Once he pit on Lap 347, Truex remained in the lead followed by Bowman, Larson and Harvick.
With 50 laps to go, Truex held a more than 3-second lead over Bowman with Larson in third, 4.5-seconds behind the leader.
Truex’s lead had grown to more almost 5 seconds over Bowman with 30 laps remaining. Larson was third and Harvick fourth.
With 10 laps to go, Truex’s lead had ballooned to more than 8 seconds over Bowman. Larson was third, Harvick fourth and Elliott fifth.
Bowman was not able to cut the margin any lower to Truex with five laps remaining.
Read Also:
- Martin Truex Jr. snags Stage 2 win from Bowman at Dover
- Joey Logano takes Stage 1 win with two-tire call
Cla # Driver Manufacturer Laps Time Laps Led 1 19 
Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 400 132 2 88 Alex Bowman Chevrolet 400 9.501 16 3 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 400 13.046 4 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 400 13.313 1 5 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 400 17.065 145 6 20 Erik Jones Toyota 400 17.582 7 22 Joey Logano Ford 400 21.936 16 8 24 William Byron Chevrolet 400 22.311 5 9 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 400 22.748 10 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 400 23.332 1 11 41 
Daniel Suarez Ford 400 24.054 21 12 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 399 1 lap 58 13 1 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 399 1 lap 14 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 399 1 lap 4 15 12 Ryan Blaney Ford 399 1 lap 16 10 Aric Almirola Ford 399 1 lap 17 21 Paul Menard Ford 399 1 lap 18 6 Ryan Newman Ford 398 2 laps 19 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 398 2 laps 20 95 Matt DiBenedetto Toyota 398 2 laps 21 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 397 3 laps 22 13 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 397 3 laps 23 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 397 3 laps 24 34 Michael McDowell Ford 395 5 laps 1 25 8 Daniel Hemric Chevrolet 394 6 laps 26 38 David Ragan Ford 393 7 laps 27 43 Darrell Wallace Jr. Chevrolet 393 7 laps 28 47 Ryan Preece Chevrolet 392 8 laps 29 32 Corey Lajoie Ford 392 8 laps 30 15 Ross Chastain Chevrolet 389 11 laps 31 00 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 389 11 laps 32 36 Matt Tifft Ford 387 12 laps 33 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 386 14 laps 34 51 Cody Ware Ford 383 17 laps 35 27 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 356 43 laps 36 77 Quin Houff Chevrolet 168 231 laps 37 52 B.J. McLeod Chevrolet 96 303 laps
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