NASCAR Cup Series: Martin Truex Jr. wins 2019 Toyota Owners 400

In his 81st career attempt, Martin Truex Jr. earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series short track victory by winning the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. ended his 25-race NASCAR Cup Series win drought and earned his first victory of the 2019 season, his first season driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, and the first short track victory in his career by winning the season’s ninth race, the Toyota Owners 400, at Richmond Raceway. This race was the 81st short track race of his career.

Truex Jr. held off late charges from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Clint Bowyer and Team Penske’s Joey Logano in what was arguably the best finish of the season thus far to become the fifth different driver to win a race this year.

After starting the 400-lap race around the four-turn, 0.75-mile (1.207-kilometer) Richmond Raceway oval in Richmond, Virginia in fifth place in his #19 Toyota, Truex Jr. held off Logano by just 0.178 seconds to take the win. Logano finished in second in his #22 Ford.

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Finishing just 0.521 seconds behind Truex Jr. and 0.343 seconds behind Logano was Bowyer, who finished in third place in his #14 Ford after challenging Truex Jr. late but slightly hitting the wall and being unable to pass him before ultimately relinquishing second to Logano.

Logano gave Truex Jr. his toughest challenge over the race’s final two laps, but he didn’t have enough to earn what would have been his second victory of the season, at least not over the course of this limited amount of laps.

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, who started the race from the pole position, arrived on the scene late to finish in fourth place, as he finished just 0.932 seconds behind Truex Jr., but he never had the chance to truly challenge the top three drivers. Race polesitters have now failed to win each of the last 26 Cup Series races.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin was the first driver who did not finish in the lead pack, as he finished in fifth place in his #11 Toyota. He finished 3.826 seconds behind Truex Jr. and 2.894 seconds behind Harvick.

Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon was the highest finishing Chevrolet driver of the race, which was yet another race that resulted in Chevrolet drivers and teams being virtual non-factors from start to finish, something that has become extremely common since around the middle of the 2017 season.

Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch, Roush Fenway Racing’s Ryan Newman and Wood Brothers Racing’s Paul Menard rounded out the top 10 by finishing in seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th place in their #2 Ford, #18 Toyota, #6 Ford and #21 Ford, respectively.

Busch dominated the race early on, but after being issued a pit road speeding penalty, he was unable to work his way back up to the front of the field.

The race featured a total of eight lead changes among five drivers. Aside of Truex Jr., who led more laps than anybody else in the field with 186 laps led, four drivers led at least one lap of the race. In fact, they all led at least 31 laps. These four drivers were Logano, Harvick, Keselowski and Busch. Busch won stage one while Logano won stage two.

The race also featured a total of five caution flag periods, although only two of them took place as a result of on-track incidents. One of the other three caution flag periods took place during stage one as a result of a competition caution due to the fact that the track had been rained on overnight and the other two took place as a result of the usual endings of stages one and two.

Of the 37 drivers who started the race, 35 finished it. Of the 35 drivers who finished the race, 16 finished on the lead lap.

Here are the full race results of the 2019 Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.

Race Results
1st – Martin Truex Jr.
2nd – Joey Logano
3rd – Clint Bowyer
4th – Kevin Harvick
5th – Denny Hamlin
6th – Austin Dillon
7th – Brad Keselowski
8th – Kyle Busch
9th – Ryan Newman
10th – Paul Menard
11th – Kurt Busch
12th – Jimmie Johnson
13th – William Byron
14th – Erik Jones
15th – Chase Elliott
16th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17th – Alex Bowman
18th – Daniel Suarez
19th – Daniel Hemric
20th – Ryan Preece
21st – Ty Dillon
22nd – Chris Buescher
23rd – Aric Almirola
24th – Matt DiBenedetto
25th – Ryan Blaney
26th – Corey LaJoie
27th – Darrell Wallace Jr.
28th – David Ragan
29th – Matt Tifft
30th – Ross Chastain
31st – Jeb Burton
32nd – Bayley Currey
33rd – Joey Gase
34th – Quin Houff
35th – Landon Cassill
36th – Michael McDowell
37th – Kyle Larson

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The NASCAR Cup Series has next weekend off for Easter, but action is scheduled to resume on Sunday, April 28 with the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama. This race, which is the 10th of 36 races on the 2019 schedule, is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET.

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