A crash on lap 139, which saw Kasey Kahne come across Daniel Suarez’s fender and take Suarez to the wall with him, set up a myriad of differing plans but gave Furniture Row Racing teammates Truex and Jones the front row for a restart with 53 to go.

The FRR duo held the point until their final green flag pit stops came at laps 160 and 161, respectively, with Denny Hamlin ultimately assuming the point after pitting under the preceding caution flag.

Hamlin retained command until his final pit stop with 23 to go, and then Truex took over again with 12 laps left once Busch pitted as well.

Everything appeared to be shaping up for Truex’s fifth win of the season, but a caution for debris with 14 to go — moments after Joey Logano slowed with a flat tire — changed everything and bunched the field up for the first of two late restarts.

Truex got the jump over Jones when the green flag flew with nine laps left, and pulled out by nearly a second, again seeming to have the race well in hand. However, Menard tagging McDowell around on the backstretch with five to go erased the gap yet again and set up the race-defining move by Larson.

Though Truex finished a strong second, it was bitter for the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Toyota after leading 57 laps on the day.

“I tried to do something a little different there,” Truex said of the final restart. “I had Larson behind me and he hit me and when he hit me, I went and spun the tires. They just got too cold there under the red and there wasn’t enough time to get them warmed up. Our car generally took a few laps to get going. When we had enough caution laps, I was able to keep the heat in the tires.”

“I thought that there was no way he was going to get around me on the bottom with all that speedy dry down there and I just went into (Turn) 1 and chattered the tires because they were just too cold. It was just one of those deals; sometimes they just don’t work out. We had a really fast race car today. I’m proud of that. Michigan has been so tough for us to get that win, and today it’s on me. We’ll learn from it and move on.”

Jones charged back from fifth to third in the final lap for his career-best Cup finish, ahead of surprise top-five finishers Ryan Newman and Trevor Bayne.

Chris Buescher, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Busch completed the top 10.

Polesitter Brad Keselowski, who led 103 of the first 110 laps and appeared to be a threat for the win for much of the race, faded after a late-race pit stop and finished 17th.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series returns to action Saturday, Aug. 19 for the Bass Pro Shops/NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Full race results can be viewed on the next page…