After collecting four wins in the first 16 races of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, things had cooled off for 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr.
The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has not won a race over the last 10 races, but more surprisingly five of those 10 races have resulted in finishes outside the top-10. Sunday, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the opening round of the 2019 Playoffs Truex is looking for a turnaround.
With two laps remaining in Stage 2 of the South Point 400, Truex utilized lapped traffic to speed around race-leader and Stage 1 winner Joey Logano. Truex would then cruise to the Stage 2 win.
Logano, who is looking to sweep the season at Las Vegas, held on to finish runner-up in the Stage.
Kyle Larson has showed incredible speed over the past month, that continued with a third-place finish in Stage 2.
Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott finished fourth and fifth.
William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman rounded out the top-10 from Stage 2.
Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Newman, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch and Erik Jones — who are all part of the 16 drivers vying for the championship — finished outside the top-10 in Stage 2.
Bowyer, who started from the pole now sits a lap down in 20th, but he will receive the free pass from the Stage caution.
Kyle Busch is still trapped two laps down in 28th after slapping the wall and then having to pit out of sequence in the early laps of the race.
Jones currently sits last on the leaderboard, 14 laps off the pace. Jones had a mechanical issue where his transmission was stuck in second gear.
