It’s kinda fitting that Martin Truex Jr.’s sponsor was Bass Pro Shops in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, because the driver of the No. 19 car steadily reeled in Kevin Harvick for the race lead. With 19 laps to go, Truex got around Harvick and he set sail for the race win.
This marks Truex’s fifth victory of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, and it secures his advancement to Round 2 of the NASCAR Playoffs.
In addition to the five Playoff Points for the race win, Truex also picked up another Playoff Point for winning Stage 2 as well.
Harvick would cross the finish line nearly five seconds behind Truex in second.
Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-five finishers in the race.
Alex Bowman came home and impressive sixth, and William Byron rebounded from a cut tire and spin to finish seventh.
Kyle Larson ended up in eighth, and Joey Logano — who won Stage 1 — salvaged a decent ninth place finish after damage was suffered in an incident with Daniel Suarez.
Ryan Newman finished 10th.
Amazingly, on a night where several championship contenders found trouble, the entire top-10 was made up of Playoff drivers.
The other Playoff drivers and where they finished were: Aric Almirola (13th), Denny Hamlin (15th), Kyle Busch (19th), Clint Bowyer (25th), Erik Jones (36th) and Kurt Busch (39th).
For Kyle Busch, he had a rough night. He slapped the wall on lap seven, and had to pit at lap 12 for repairs. This put him two laps down, which he would remain for the majority of the race.
However, in the final Stage, Busch got back on the lead lap and worked his way well inside the top-10. Then, he had contact with a lapped Garrett Smithley which damaged his front end. This resulted in Busch plummeting to 19th.
Bowyer — who started from the pole — had to pit under green after contact on the race track caused a tire rub. Jones had a transmission issue where his car was stuck in second gear, but his team was able to repair the issue and Jones finished the race. Kurt Busch cut a tire, pounded the wall and was the only car to not finish the 400-mile event.
Post-Race Stat Pack:
