After years of frustration and misfortune, Martin Truex Jr has finally landed a Crayon 301 trophy. Having come into the venue where his dad once drove to victory lane, the #19 Camaro driver hoped to shrug off all his past woes and come out on top. And the very same thing happened. After dominant performances in previous outings, the 43-year-old ended his long wait to win his first race at in New Hampshire. But the Joe Gibbs Racing ship wasn’t all smooth sailing at the race.

With 13 laps to go till the completion of the race, Truex’s teammate delayed the celebrations by a bit. Livid at this incident at first, surprisingly, MTJ took his words back after his furious outburst.

Martin Truex Jr claims he was never nervous despite ranting over caution flags

Out of 301 laps, Truex Jr led 254 of them. That’s a whopping 84 percent of available laps in the race. But these stats can be pretty misleading. If one looks at his previous record at Loudon, Truex led an astonishing 768 laps in the last nine races at the track. But to one’s surprise, he never finished above third. But the streak of poor luck only lasted till Monday. Adding up the numbers from an incredible performance by Truex, that makes it 1,022 laps led in 10 races.

Christopher Bell‘s unlucky conclusion to the race was one of Monday’s more eye-catching events. Leading the grid after dominance in the qualifying session, Bell and Truex put Joe Gibbs Racing in a solid position to earn maximum points. While Truex kept going and held on to his position, things didn’t do the same for Bell.

On the 288th lap, the Bristol winner spun on the track and then hit the wall that brought out the caution flags. The caution flags could have proved detrimental for Truex, who led the race then. Speaking to the media in a post-race press conference, he responds to questions about the change in mental state after looking at the caution flags following Bell’s crash.

“Obviously this is a big win, but when those cautions came out, did you get a little nervous there?” asked a journalist. He firmly replies, “No.”

That was quite unexpected, especially after looking at Truex’s opinion about the crash on his team radio. The race went on for long stretch without any disturbance in the tempo and momentum, but in the final phases of the race, it did threaten the grid leader’s plans.

“I Had to Hold Up My End of the Bargain”: Amid Uncertainty from Martin Truex Jr, Another Joe Gibbs Racing Driver Bags Record Fourth Win of the Season

An overview of Truex Jr’s win

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As a result of the race, Truex takes a 17-point lead in the race for the regular season title over rival William Byron who has been in amazing form this season. Although Byron has one more win, the #19 driver has amassed more regular season points to solidify his claim. Byron finishing 24th makes things even better for the winner as he prepares for a tug of war for the regular season trophy.

The upcoming race will be held in Pocono, another venue Truex will look to deliver on. With victories in 2015 and 2018 at the track before, there is a good probability of him having a good run. Coming back to Loudon, he did have his struggles, but nothing posed a real threat with such a comfortable lead. In stage 1 he cruised to a win with the contact with Kyle Busch‘s #8 Camaro being the only obstruction for him in the final lap of the stage.

He exchanged leads with Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Byron as well. Eventually, he managed to get the lead back after taking a whole set of new tires. The pit stops came as a result of AJ Allmendinger spinning on the track and most teams did try their best to make use of it. With 115 laps to go, MTJ took the lead back and had to endure some competition by Kyle Larson to take a stage 2 win as well.

One of the major turning points in the race was the #19 team deciding to not take a pit stop in the break between the second and third stages. During this time, Truex stayed on the track to remain in the lead and start off the 116-lap final stage. Ryan Blaney was one of the drivers who pushed their luck to test the leader but with the final stage kicking off, he was still behind by one second with Joey Logano behind him.

A string of pit stops continued as Kevin Harvick propelled himself to the lead after staying on the track with 24 laps left. Truex got in two new tires and eased past Harvick to reclaim control.  Amidst all this, a series of wrecks and crashes ensued involving Bell, Noah Gragson, etc. The race saw nine caution flags which were comfortably handled by the victor as he led the grid at all restarts. This was a truly hard-earned victory for Martin Truex Jr indeed.

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