Truex Jr’s Martinsville win is his 3rd victory in “The Chase”… moves on to the next round (10-27-19)

By: Becca Cottingham

Headline Photo Courtesy: NASCAR

It is a beautiful warm day at Martinsville and thankfully all the rain passed through very late Saturday into early Sunday morning. So as not to cause a weather issue for the day. Goodyear was planning on cooler temperatures at Martinsville but the temperatures are around 80 degrees. It is unusually warm. We have our first caution when when two cars got together and the front quarter panel was taken off the car. Martin Truex Jr was able even with a four tire pitstop to get pass and make moves to the front. Chase Elliot has mace some big moves from the back to into the top ten. Drivers twenty six and back are already down at least one or more laps. Martin Truex Jr will go on to win stage two.

Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer line up to start stage two and Clint got a huge jump. This moved Denny backwards multiple spots. Denny Hamlin was not happy about that move. There is a lot of beating and banging on the car. Ty Dillion spun out after coming across the nose of Hemric. Denny Hamlin lost multiple spots on pit road. Then Chase Elliott has a Axel issue and is on pit road to try to get this fixed. Brad Keselowski has a high rub on the side wall. Clint Bowyer then had an issue with a tire going flat. They thought it was a left side but it was truly a right side issue. They only changed left sides and ended up bring out a caution because he could not get back to the bottom. Kyle Larson’s crew chief made a huge call to keep him on the track and even though he lost the lead he got nine points for that stage. Martin Truex Jr was able to make a last lap pass and win stage two.

In stage three we have beating and banging as usual at Martinsville. Then Austin Dillion and Ricky Stenhouse Jr got into an incident. Austin Dillion got hit with too fast entering pit road and pitting too early. The green flag dropped and Austin Dillion had to be checked for dragging something and that was cleared. William Byron has made some great moves on the track and made it through into the too five. Then we get Kyle Busch and Aric Amarillo get into one another which caused a bunch up at the start finish line. We had multiple other cautions, but two play off players during one restarts caused another caution with less than fifty to go. Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano got into each other and caused a tire to be cut on the 22 team. A few laps later we get another caution and restart. Now we have a battle between William Byron and Martin Truex Jr for a possible first time winner or a short track sweep. William tried everything be could to get to him, but Martin Truex Jr was just a little bit better. Martin Truex Jr wins at Martinsville and punches his ticket to race at Homestead.