Truex's victory sends reminder

LONG POND, Pa. -- Martin Truex Jr. had his car parked on the White House lawn and was feted with a day in his honor in his home state of New Jersey.

Nearly seven months after winning his first NASCAR Cup championship, Truex's whirlwind victory tour remains on a barnstorming schedule.

"It just kind of reminded us of how big a deal it is to win a championship in this sport," Truex said.

Lost in the shuffle in a season where Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch have turned the Cup Series into a two-driver show, Truex came to Pocono and gave the field a reminder he's still a driver to beat in the championship race.

Truex stayed out on a pivotal caution late in the race to take the lead, then pulled away off a restart with seven laps left to win Sunday at Pocono Raceway and thrust himself into title contention.

"Just happy today that things kind of went our way a little bit for once," Truex said.

The 37-year-old Furniture Row Racing driver is still having the type of season that most drivers would love to produce. He won the fifth race of the season at Fontana and had runner-up finishes in each of the past two races headed into Pocono, where he won his first race for Furniture Row Racing in 2015 and launched his journeyman-to-champion career metamorphosis.

Still, Busch and Harvick had made a habit of collecting checkered flags; the two former Cup champions combined to win nine of the first 13 races. And each driver spent enough time in front -- Harvick led 89 laps; Busch 13 -- that a one-two finish at Pocono seemed almost certain on the 2½-mile track.

Truex and Harvick each stayed out on a caution with 20 laps left in the race. Busch made a pit stop and surrendered the lead to Truex, who held off a hard-charging Kyle Larson down the stretch and showed he's still a threat to win his second conseuctive title.

The Harvick-Busch-Truex champions trio have won 10 of 14 races.

"I think three of those guys are definitely head-over-heels better than the rest of us," Larson said.

Larson was second, followed by Busch and Harvick. Brad Keselowski was fifth.

Busch won the Xfinity Series race Saturday to help Toyota sweep the weekend.

But Pocono belonged to Truex as he won his 17th career Cup race.

"I feel like we're getting back to what we were doing last year," Truex said. "It's always fun to win, especially when you beat the best guys out there."

In the stunning stat department, seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson led his first laps of the season in the first stage. Johnson, who led as many as 2,238 laps in a season in 2009, was in first for the first time since Martinsville in the 33rd race last season.

Johnson finished eighth and extended the longest losing streak of his career to 37. It's been a year since he last won -- June 4, 2017, at Dover.

A year after he made his Cup debut at Pocono, Darrell Wallace Jr. was the first car to the garage Sunday. He appeared to blow the engine when he missed a shift, and his Chevrolet rolled to the garage for his first DNF of the season.

Sports on 06/04/2018