Not only is Truex a multi-time winner in a season for the first time in his career, but he’s the sixth Cup driver with two victories. It was a finish that left Harvick – who led a race-high 214 laps – just a wee bit perturbed at the end, and the blame went straight to his pit crew.
Slow stops on pit road tend to do that to a driver. Case in point: With 85 laps to go in the 367-lap race, Harvick came in leading, but a 16.6-second stop pushed him all the way back to 12th.
“Did we just lose this race?” Harvick asked on his team radio, as reported by FoxSports.com.
He did, but Harvick rallied back to give himself a chance, closing within six-tenths of a second for his fourth runner-up finish of the season, including to Truex Jr. at Charlotte. The 2014 Cup champion also has three fourth-place runs and and three fifth-place efforts.
That’s a total of 12 top-5 runs for the No. 4 car in 25 races. You can rest assured he’d much rather pad the winning number than any of the others.
And as they head to Richmond on Sept. 10 for the final race before the Chase begins, there are still just three open spots remaining. Jamie McMurray, who finished 15th at Darlington, was a victim of his own late-race pit-road mistake and is on the bubble at only seven points in front of Ryan Newman.
As for the 13th driver with a victory, Chris Buescher managed to improve his position as he looks to seal the deal after 400 laps at Richmond. He finished 17th at Darlington and added four points to his cushion over David Ragan.
Buescher – the winner at the rain-shortened Pocono race last month – is still 30th, but in front by 11 points. He knows that margin won’t be easy to maintain. When they raced at Richmond in April, Buescher finished 34th and Ragan came in 23rd.
A tie will obviously benefit Buescher by virtue of his earlier victory, but anything worse means Newman can still slip into the Chase even if he doesn’t earn eight more points than McMurray.
Going down the other series, there was some serious controversy in the Camping World Truck Series Chevy Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park near Toronto. On the final lap, John Hunter Nemechek got into a major battle of beating and banging with Cole Custer.
It got so bad, the pair ended up crossing the finish line on the grass and not on the track. After a review, Nemechek was awarded his second win of the season and denied Custer a win that would have given him a Chase spot.
Custer was so mad, he went after Nemechek and gave him a flying tackle before team members and officials quickly separated the pair. The 18-year-old vented to reporters afterwards.
“I was expecting it, kinda, because he’s raced a lot of people like that but it’s just a shame because it was a great chance to get into the Chase and he took it away from us,” Custer said in a NASCAR Wire Service story.
In spite of the frustration, Custer gets one more shot for a win at Chicagoland Speedway in two weeks to make the Chase. At the moment, Timothy Peters and Daniel Hemric are the two non-winners who are in the eight-driver field to determine the 2016 title.
And on the XFINITY Series side, Elliott Sadler beat Denny Hamlin and scored his second win of the season to solidify his Chase position. With 12 drivers in that field, there are two races left – at Richmond and Chicagoland – before the run to their championship begins.
At this point, nine non-winners are in on points, and Ryan Sieg is on the bubble. He has an 18-point cushion on Dakoda Armstrong.
With all that going on, it’s time to get the belts tight and start thinking about what championship glory lies ahead.
Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports or email tominator19@yahoo.com.
NEXT WEEK'S RACES
Richmond International Raceway (.75-mile oval), Richmond, Virginia.
-SPRINT CUP: Federated Auto Parts 400, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.
Race distance: 400 laps, 300 miles.
2015 champion: Matt Kenseth
-XFINITY SERIES: Virginia 529 College Savings 250, Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.
Race distance: 250 laps, 187.5 miles.
2015 champion: Chase Elliott
-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Off until Sept. 16 for the American Ethanol E15 225 at Chicagoland Speedway.
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