Busch made his final pit stop with 52 to go and fell 17 seconds back of Truex, who inherited the race lead at that point, but mowed through the gap thanks to his fresher tires and was down to nine seconds back with 40 to go.
At that point, the divergent strategies became a moot point, when Kurt Busch spun in turns three and four to bring out the fifth and final caution flag of the night, sending all the leaders down pit road for a final round of fresh tires, fuel and adjustments to go to the finish.
Truex won the race off pit road and then powered away on the restart with 34 to go, as Harvick settled into second and Busch was held up battling Joey Logano for the third spot.
With 25 to go, Busch finally shook clear of Logano and began running the front of the field down, soaring around Harvick seven laps later and cutting a 1.2-second deficit to Truex into shreds as the two Toyota stablemates prepared to clash for the crown.
Busch got there with 10 to go and hounded Truex’s back bumper for the final 15 miles of the event, going both low and high in any effort to try and get past.
But Truex was perfect going down the stretch, and despite a fierce challenge from both Busch and third-running Kyle Larson, held both pursuers off to capture his 15th Cup Series victory — the biggest and most emotional win of his racing career.
“It’s just overwhelming,” Truex admitted. “To think about all the rough days and bad days, and now to be here … I never thought this day would come. To be standing here is so unbelievable.”
Busch came home second in both the race and the championship fight, after a valiant effort to try and catch the season dominator came up one spot short in the end.
“We gave it everything we had. Congratulations to the 78 (Truex). They deserved it probably on every other race but today’s, I feel like. I thought we were better, honestly, but it doesn’t matter. They were out front when it mattered the most.”
“It’s just unfortunate for us that that caution came out. It ruined our race strategy and we weren’t able to get back to where we needed to be … and then I had to fight way too hard with some other guys trying to get back up through there, but that’s racing. We’ll be back next year to try for it again.”
Larson completed the podium finishers in third, snapping a four-race streak of DNFs, followed by Harvick and Chase Elliott.
Keselowski capped off the championship quartet with a seventh-place finish, ending the year fourth in the standings.
Matt Kenseth scored a top-10 finish in his final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series start as a full-time driver, finishing eighth behind Keselowski.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was three laps down and came home 25th in his last Cup start, lamenting hitting the wall late but all smiles as he congratulated his long-time friend on winning the title with a huge door-slam to Truex’s car on the cool-down lap.
The 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season kicks off with the 60th running of the Daytona 500, Feb. 18 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Full race results can be viewed on the next page…
