Martin Truex Jr. survived an early brush with the outside wall and a frenetic restart with five laps left to win Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
On a race that featured 16 cautions — most since the record 22 in 2005 — Truex made a four-wide pass to the inside coming off Turn 2 on Lap 396 of 400 at the 1.5-mile track and beat runner-up Joey Logano to the finish line by .330 seconds.
The victory was Truex’s third of the season, matching Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski for most in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series so far. It was his third at Charlotte and the 22nd of his career, but it was hardly the sort of dominating performance that saw Truex lead a record 392 laps in 2016.
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF THE GO FAST!
Two of our players were riding shotgun with the 2017 Cup champion at Charlotte this weekend. Those two are Bernie The Bay Area Bandit and Wild Bill The Pretzel Man. Both of these players have a fast start to their 2nd segment scores, racking up a very cool 42 points from Martin Truex, Jr’s victory.
THE MOVERS AND THE SHAKERS
As happens from week to week, the race winner did not produce the highest score for the players. Even though Truex led the field to the checkered flag at Charlotte, he (Truex) did not deliver the highest score to his supporters!
Instead, the rooting section for ol Rowdy added the most points to their 2nd segment totals. The players who were hanging with Kyle Busch for the Coca Cola 600, Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff, Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle, Carlton The Doorman, Linda B. The Cookie Mom, Jeremy The Coach, as well as Dan The Numbers Cruncher, in fact, added the most points to their buckets, 50 crucial points.
Doing very well this weekend includes a threesome that includes Kathy The Church Forecloser, Lonna The Quilt Angel and David The Mudslinging Throttle Jockey. The Church Forecloser, The Quilt Angel and The Throttle Jockey all received 47 points at Charlotte via William Clyde Elliott, Jr’s (aka Chase Elliott) 4th place finish.
As mentioned above The Bay Area Bandit and The Pretzel Dude racked up 42 points to rank third on the scoring pylon this week.
Meanwhile, Edie The Las Vegas Super Star and Carole, aka Rudy, were rooting for the 2018 Cup champ, Joey Logano. “Sliced Brad” delivered 41 big ones at the end of the race concluded.
Rounding out the top five weekly scorers is the first segment winner, Linda R. The Lemonade Lefty, who was riding in Kevin Harvick’s copilot seat during the longest race of the season. The Lemonade Lefty pocketed 38 timely points.
STRAIGHT FROM THE CRAPPER
This week Amber The Extremely Lucky Cheddar Head ran completely out of luck with her selection of Kyle Larson as her choice to wing The Coca Cola 600. The Cheddar Head could only muster up a single digit score of 5 microscopic points! So The Cheddar Head gets to do some interior decorating this week since she is the first one to inhabit The Outhouse at the beginning of the 2nd segment.
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR BELTS TIGHT, AND LET’S GO RACIN’!