If anyone loves a rainy day, it’s Martin Truex Jr.
The Mayetta, New Jersey driver won his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway after a rain delay pushed the event to Monday, June 4, 2007.
On Monday at the Monster Mile, Truex won for the 21st time in the rain-delayed Gander RV 400, beating runner-up Alex Bowman to the finish line by 9.501 seconds, topping the 7.355-second margin he achieved in his inaugural win 12 years ago.
The size of Truex’s second victory of the season—and third at Dover overall—was all the more impressive because the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had to start at the rear of the field after two pre-race inspection failures.
“Man, it feels incredible,” said Truex, who led the last 53 laps and 132 overall, second only to pole winner and fifth-place finisher Chase Elliott’s 146. “I’m so thankful for this team. What a race car we had today.
“We have one hell of a team. We came here with a new set-up this time because we kind of had an older set-up that we won with in 2016, and we’d been good, but not good enough.
“Thanks to all these fans that came out today, on a Monday. It’s just awesome.”
Truex had remarked before the race that coming through the field wouldn’t be easy. Even though he made it look that way, Truex had to put in a hard day’s work at one of NASCAR’s most physically demanding tracks.
“I promise it wasn’t easy,” Truex said. “It was a lot of work. It was tough. This race car, man, it was just incredible.”
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF THE GO FAST
This week Lonna The Quilt Angel used her Martin Truex, Jr. selection at the right time, Dover. She was the single biggest scorer, gathering up 50 timely points from Truex’s Gander RV 400 victory.
THE MOVERS AND THE SHAKERS
Not far behind The Quilt Angel on the scoring pylon this week is the unlikely duo of Bernie The Bay Area Bandit and Leon The Retired Airline Captain, Part-Time Cardiologist as well as Strawberry Picker, Elephant Driver, and Your Most Humble Sheriff. This strange pairing added a much needed 47 points to their 1st segment totals.
Likewise, Jeremy The Coach and Carole, aka Rudy, had a fantastic race day! The Coach and Rudy put 46 points into their totals from Kyle Larson’s third place finish.
Meanwhile, both Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle and Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head logged 40 points after the checkered flag flew at Dover. Even though both players received the same score, they each were rooting for a different drivers. The Highly Opinionated One was betting the farm on “Blazingly Bad” Brad Keselowski, while The Cheddar Head was riding shotgun with Joey Logano.
Rounding out the top five scorers is Kathy The Church Forecloser, who added 34 points to her war chest via Erik Jones’ sixth place finish.
It is quite amazing that, this late into the segment, there is still a significant amount of movement. Thirteen of the eighteen players packed up their goods and moved to a new location on the leaderboard.
The largest mover this week is ol Snoopy Dawn, who slipped, tumbled and fell five (5) spots and now resides in 12th place this week.
Both Lonna The Quilt Angel and Bobby Blue Crush moved three (3) places this week. The Quilt Angel stepped up three places to reside in 6th place. Conversely, Blue Crush tripped and fell three places to own the 7th place this week.
Meanwhile the group of five players, Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head, Dan The Numbers Cruncher, Carlton The Doorman, Bernie The Bay Area Bandit, as well as Linda B. The Cookie Mom moved just two doors from their previous position. The Cheddar Head, The Numbers Dude, as well as The Bay Area Bandit moved up two spots to now sit in 8th, 9th, and 13th, respectively. However, The Doorman and The Cookie Mom tumbled two spots to rest in 10th and 15th , respectively.
Rounding out this week’s movers are five players, Leon Your Most Humble
Sheriff, Linda R. The Lemonade Lefty, Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle, Carole, aka Rudy, and Edie The Las Vegas Super Star moved just one place. Your Most Humble Sheriff, The Highly Opinionated One, Rudy, and The Vegas Super Star all stepped up one position to now rest in 1st, 4th, 5th, and 11th place. The Lemonade Lefty slithered down one place to sit in 2nd place.
STRAIGHT FROM THE CRAPPER
This week we have co-winners for “The Crappiest Pick of The Week”. Both Bobby Blue Crush and Linda B. The Lemonade Lefty could only muster up 16 points. In many weeks 16 points is not a bad week at all. However, this week these two players garnered the lowest tallies for the week and will be sharing “The Crappiest Pick of The Week” award!
Lastly, for the second week in row The Outhouse award returns to the previous week’s occupant, Wild Bill The Pretzel Man!
With just one race left in this segment, the race to the bottom is almost as hotly contested as the race to the top of the scoreboard! For those at or near the bottom of the scoring pylon you may be sending out your “SOS” or yelling “MAYDAY”, and hope that help arrives next week!
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR BELTS TIGHT, AND LET’S GO RACIN’!