Coming into the weekend, it looked as though Mother Nature was poised to dominate the weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, with a gloomy three-day forecast that suggest headaches would be imminent.
However, it ended up being the Truex family that conquered the one-mile concrete oval, with Ryan and Martin Truex, Jr. sweeping the weekend with the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Cup Series events.
The NASCAR Cup Series champion completed the weekend sweep on Monday, nearly a day after the race was originally scheduled to conclude, as a result of a dreadful weather forecast on Sunday, which forced the sanctioning body to postpone the race.
Truex, who started 17th as a result of NASCAR’s Performance Metric system, wasn’t the quickest vehicle throughout the opening portion of the event and took his time in getting the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry TRD Pro to the front of the pack.
A native of Mayetta, New Jersey, Truex didn’t take the lead in the race for the first time until he was able to jump Ross Chastain on the final cycle of green-flag pit stops, which left him to defend against the quick No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro for the final laps of the race.
Though, just when Truex and Chastain were shaping up to put on a great show for the fans that stayed in Dover, Delaware an extra day, a caution was displayed, after Joey Logano had a significant crash in turn four.
On the pit stop, which came inside the race’s final 15 laps, Truex and James Small elected to take two tires, along with Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney, lining them up in the first three positions on the track. Ross Chastain, however, elected to take four tires.
The race concluded in a seven-lap run to the finish, where Truex was barely able to clear Ryan Blaney for the lead and start to streak away from the pack before Chastain could get into the runner-up spot on four tires.
However, the tire deficit wasn’t enough to give Chastain a legitimate shot at the No. 19 Toyota Camry for the victory, leaving the Trackhouse Racing driver to settle for a runner-up finish at the one-mile concrete oval, finishing a half-second behind Truex.
Finishing in second, the finish – plus stage points – were enough to give Chastain the chance to lead the NASCAR Cup Series point standings heading to Kansas, taking over the lead from Christopher Bell.
Ryan Blaney came home with a third-place finish but will have to wait at least another week before he can snap a long winless streak in the NASCAR Cup Series. It’s the Team Penske driver’s second top-three result in a row.
William Byron, who led a race-high 193 laps, was able to rebound to a fourth-place result, after taking four tires on the final pit stop. Byron dominated the early portions of the race but started to fade in the closing 25 percent of the race.
Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five. Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick scored finishes of sixth and seventh place for Toyota, while RFK Racing teammates Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher finished eighth and ninth.
Josh Berry, subbing for an injured Alex Bowman, put together a solid run throughout the 400-lap contest at Dover Motor Speedway, finishing in 10th, his third top-10 in the NASCAR Cup Series this season.
With a couple of long-green flag runs, only 12 cars finished on the lead lap, with Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace scoring finishes of 11th and 12th.
Leaving Dover, Chastain takes over the points lead from Christopher Bell, and heads to Kansas with a three-point advantage on the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex, Jr., and Ryan Blaney round out the top-five.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Kansas Speedway for this weekend’s event, in which it will share the track with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series.
