Martin Truex Jr. surged to his fourth victory of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season Sunday, winning a fuel-conservation battle at Watkins Glen International.
Truex led a race-high 24 of the 90 laps in the I LOVE NEW YORK 355, his Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota maintaining a .414-second margin at the checkered flag. His first win on the 2.45-mile track was the 11th of his Monster Energy Series career.
Truex took the lead for the final time in the 88th lap as, one by one, his competitors made last-ditch stops for fuel. Truex had just enough gas left for a burnout near the start/finish line.
A fast-closing Matt Kenseth took second place in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota. Rookie Daniel Suarez, the Stage 2 winner, came home a career-best third in the JGR No. 19. Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer completed the top five.
The Fraternal Order of The Go Fast
This week Skid-Marc was the only player to be riding shotgun with Martin Truex, Jr. at Watkins Glen International, adding 58 big points to his totals. With that choice, Truex, ol Skid-Marc catapulted himself out of “The Outhouse” with a nice little margin in his hip pocket!
The Movers and Shakers
Following Skid-Marc as second high scorers this week is a duo consisting of Kathy The Church Forecloser, Carlton The Doorman and Linda The Cookie Mom. All were riding along with a extremely frustrated and very disappointed ol Kylie Busch today. These players racked up 42 points for the race.
Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Bell was backing Denny Hamlin, even though he usually tanks when she selects him to win the race. Notwithstanding that important Southern Belle factoid, “The Delivernator”, Denny Hamlin, brought his hot rod home in 4th place and paid big dividends of 38 points to The Opinionated One.
Snoopy Dawn was banking that Kurt Busch, formally known as “The Outlaw”, could put some nice numbers in their bank at The Glen. The driver formally known as “The Outlaw” put 34 points in her column today.
Rounding out the top five scorers for the week is Edie The Las Vegas Super Star. The Vegas Super Star gave the rookie Erik Jones a shot and he didn’t disappoint her at The Glen. Jones finished the race in 10th place, rewarding her with 33 points.
Although there was not huge scale movement, sixteen players slithered around on the leaderboard this week. Through basic math you can figure that five players, Doug The Gandy Candy Man, Dan The Numbers Cruncher, Carole, aka Rudy, Zee, aka Sissy and Jerry The Buschwacker remained in their previous spots.
The biggest movers after the checkered flag flew was the duo of Lonna The Quilt Angel and Skid-Marc, moving three (3) places.. Ol Skidz climbed up three places, rocketing out of “The Outhouse” to land in 18th place. But The Quilt Angel fell from being the fantasy league leader last week to sit now in 4th place.
Both Bernie The Bay Area Bandit and Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff fell two (2) spots to reside in 8th and 15th, respectively.
The remaining 12 players either moved up one spot or slipped down one spot this week!
Straight From The Crapper
Lonna The Quilt Angel wins “The Crappiest Pick of The Week” award by scoring just 12 points her choice of Ryan Newman.
Even though David The Mudslinging Throttle Jockey scored 32 points this week, it was not a largest enough score to preclude him from securing his position in “The Outhouse” this week!
Next stop for NASCAR is the Irish Hills of Michigan and the Michigan International Speedway.
Just a thought: This year Martin Truex, Jr. and crew chief Cole Pearn have transformed Furniture Row Racing from “the little engine that could” to the winningest Cup team so far in 2017, that is totally “hot stuff”!
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR GLOVES UP, FLIP YOUR VISOR DOWN, AND LET’S GO RACIN’!