SONOMA, Calif. – Martin Truex Jr. and crew chief Cole Pearn outwitted, and then out-raced, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series field to earn their third win of the season Sunday at Sonoma Raceway.
Though he led a race-high 62 of 110 laps in the Toyota/Save Mart 350, the winning move for Truex came when Pearn appeared to call his driver to pit road on lap 73.
In reality, it was a ploy to fake out the field, and then-leader Kevin Harvick took the bait.
Harvick came down for four tires and fuel, handing the lead to Truex, who stayed out eight laps longer before making his final dive to pit lane with 30 to go.
From there, it only took Harvick two circuits around the 1.99-mile, 12-turn permanent road course before he was back out front, but the die was cast as Truex’s tires were much fresher than Harvick’s were. He began charging and the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/5-Hour Energy Toyota began mowing through the field on a winning charge.
When all the stops cycled through, Truex was third and less than seven seconds behind Stewart Haas Racing teammates Harvick and Clint Bowyer. He ate three seconds out of the deficit in just four laps, passing Bowyer with ease and quickly running down Harvick.
Truex finally made the decisive pass under braking for turn 11 with 20 to go, scooting to the inside of the 2014 Cup champion and driving off into the distance as Harvick watched helplessly, unable to challenge down the stretch.
The Mayetta, N.J. native went on to win by 10.513 seconds in a show of domination.
Asked after the race whether he knew the plan in advance, Truex shook his head and laughed.
“No, that’s all Cole (Pearn, crew chief). That’s all him,” said Truex. “That was amazing. I’m cool with whatever he wants to do. I tell him all the time … win, lose or draw, we do it together and I have a lot of trust in him. I don’t even say anything when he says pit or don’t pit. I just did what he wanted to do, so awesome job by him today.”
Pearn wasn’t about to give away any secrets, either.
“We knew we were going to do one stop (in the final stage); that was our plan,” he explained. “We just needed them to pit earlier than we did for it to work out. It was a gamble, obviously, but it paid off for us. Everyone’s so good in this business that sometimes it takes something different to win these things.
“We’re not that smart; he (Truex) probably screwed up,” Pearn added with a sly grin. “I was telling him to pit, and he probably thought he was pitting, but at the end of the day here we are in victory lane … so it’s good.”
Harvick hung on for second but was understandably disappointed that he and his team missed out on their sixth win of the season after leading three times for 35 laps.
“We all make mistakes. These deals come down to split-second decisions that might be right when everything plays out, but there’s the same chance that they might not be,” said Harvick. “Those guys do a great job. Sometimes you guess wrong. I thought it was a good call at the end to put tires on in case the caution came out. We got right back up to where we were running and put ourselves in position to have a chance in case it did. We had a really good weekend and just came up one spot short. It happens sometimes.”
Harvick’s teammate, two-time season winner Clint Bowyer, crossed the line third ahead of Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch.
Kurt Busch, Erik Jones, Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman and Denny Hamlin were the rest of the top 10.
Polesitter Kyle Larson led the opening two laps, but battled an ill-handling Chevrolet all afternoon and faded to 14th.
Aside from the scheduled stage breaks at laps 25 and 50, the only caution flag of the day waved on lap 34 when A.J. Allmendinger missed a shift on the frontstretch and blew the motor on his No. 47 Chevrolet.
Allmendinger coasted to a stop, his day over after leading five laps and winning the first stage. Hamlin topped the second stage after Harvick and Truex pitted three laps before the second stage break.
