Martin Truex Jr. won Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The longest race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season came after a day that saw Lewis Hamilton win the F1 race at Monaco and Simon Pagenaud win the Indy 500.
William Byron sat on the pole becoming the youngest pole sitter at Charlotte. Byron would lead early but it was not long before Kyle Busch made his way to the front showing he would be a car to contend for the win. Three tire incidents occurred in the first stage resulting in the night of Erik Jones ending while Matt DiBenedetto and Martin Truex Jr. later hit the outside wall. Brad Keselowski would win the first stage of the race.
In stage 2 Denny Hamlin became the fourth Toyota to hit the wall after a tire failure. That would allow Byron to assume the lead before handing it off to teammate Alex Bowman. In the closing laps of the stage Keselowski would run Bowman down to claim his second stage win of the night.
Following a moment of silence, pitstops would knock Keselowski back to 15th. Opting to use scuff tires in the closing laps of the third stage the No. 2 car would not be a factor for winning it. One car that emerged as a threat to win would be the No. 19 of Truex who rebounded to show that he could not be counted out despite earlier damage.
When the fourth stage began Kurt Busch got lose racing alongside Ryan Blaney. He would slide and then hit brother Kyle but managed to miss the rest of the field most notably Kevin Harvick. While Kurt would have substantial damage on his left front end, Kyle suffered noticeable damage to the area directly in-front of his right rear tire. Trouble for Kyle Larson ended the night for Austin Dillon and damaged several others including Ryan Preece who Ty Dillon hit trying to avoid Larson who was coming across the track. Preece retired later as carbon monoxide began to seep into the car.
With 42 laps to go Hamlin brought out the 14th caution after losing a right front tire and hitting the wall again. With 10 laps to go both Ryan Blaney and Keselowski suffered tire issues with the latter bringing out a caution after spinning onto pit road and erasing Truex’s lead in the process.
David Ragan stayed out from the caution and was joined by Ryan Newman who took just two tires and was first off pitroad. Truex restarted third with Busch along side him. Truex would move from third to first within a lap with Joey Logano behind him. Truex would hold him off and claim his third win in the Coca-Cola 600.
Coca-Cola 600 Results
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Busch
- Chase Elliott
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Chris Buescher
- Alex Bowman
- Jimmie Johnson
- William Byron
- Kevin Harvick
- Aric Almirola
- Corey LaJoie
- Ryan Blaney
- Paul Menard
- David Ragan
- Ryan Newman
- Denny Hamlin
- Daniel Surez
- Brad Keselowski
- Matt Tifft
- Daniel Hemric
- Michael McDowell
- Ty Dillon
- Clint Bowyer
- Bubba Wallace
- Parker Kligerman
- Kurt Busch
- Quin Houff
- BJ McLeod
- Reed Sorenson
- Ryan Preece
- Joey Gase
- Kyle Larson
- Austin Dillon
- Bayley Currey
- Ross Chastain
- Landon Cassill
- Cody Ware
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Erik Jones
