Martin Truex Jr. Wins at Sonoma, Grabs Second Win of The Year (6-11-23)
Headline Photo Credit: Stan Szeto- USA Today
We head to wine country for Sonoma Raceway. Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick will bring us to the green flag. A group of Toyotas quickly take over the top five positions, while Daniel Suarez falls backward. He shifted the car after racing the Xfinity race incorrectly and revved the engine high and now they are watching that engine. Martin Truex Jr. is taking on fellow Toyota drivers to move toward the front. He makes his way around Christopher Bell and sets his sights on Denny Hamlin. We do start seeing drivers coming down pit road around five laps before the stage is set to end. There should be no issues for drivers losing a lap. However, Ryan Blaney has issues with a speeding penalty. They will have to do a pass-through penalty. Drivers who choose to pit early can change their race. Denny Hamlin will win stage one even though there is no physical stage break.
Drivers who pitted earlier such as Chase Elliott came out just thirty-three seconds behind Denny Hamlin. Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr go to battle for the lead. With the two being teammates this hopefully will be a clean battle. Denny Hamlin does try to slam the door on his teammate and it temporarily works. However, on the very next turn, Denny Hamlin went wide. This allowed Martin Truex Jr to get the needed nose under him. They will battle closely for the next couple of turns until Martin Truex Jr is officially able to get around him. Once Martin Truex Jr gets around Denny Hamlin he does not look back until we get a caution with five to go due to a loose wheel on pit road. Some teams had already made their stops just before the caution so they will choose to stay out, while all of the front drivers will go down the pit road for service. With this caution, it will be a shootout for the last two laps. Kyle Busch will have the lead during the shootout to the end of stage two. Even with no stage breaks they still give stage points. Kyle Busch will get the stage two points.
Entering into stage three Kyle Busch will continue to lead while Martin Truex Jr continues to move forward. Martin Truex Jr knocks multiple people off on his march forward as he lost several when the caution came out. Once he makes it to second he starts his sights are set on Kyle Busch. He starts by cutting the two-second lead in half. Then just goes from there corner by corner. His team radios in and tells him that one of his best chances is to turn seven. Turn seven ends up being where he overtakes Kyle Busch. It almost looks like was going to have smooth sailing from there, but then Denny Hamlin has an issue and hits the wall hard. This will bring out an unexpected caution. Calls were going to be made for the good or bad. While some decided to stay out like Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr went to the pits. We get back to racing and we almost get another caution for Tyler Reddick. He made a judgment call and cut half the track to keep a caution from coming out. This resulted in NASCAR still penalizing Tyler Reddick. Martin Truex Jr truly did not take long to get back to the front. He then held the lead to become the unofficial winner.
