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Truex cruises to Sprint Cup win in Dover

Martin Truex Jr. used the Monster Mile to help establish himself as the driver to beat in this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.

Truex Jr. had no trouble taming the one mile concrete oval and the rest of the field in Sunday’s Sprint Cup “Citizens Soldier 400” at Dover International Speedway. 

Truex led for 187 laps and finished a comfortable seven and a half seconds head of second place Kyle Busch to earn his second win in the first three races of the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.  When the race finished, there were only 5 other cars on the lead lap with him.

Truex – now a two-time winner at Dover – says after so many near misses this season - things are just clicking now.

You know, I guess right now it’s just our time," said Truex. "Throughout the summer, we led so many laps and had so many great race cars, and so many great weekends that would just...things would happen.  I think the biggest thing is we kept our heads in the game and stayed focused on the things that truly matters, and when all that bad luck went away, here we are."

Truex says his goal now is not to mess with success.

We’re not going to change who we are.  We didn’t do that before the Chase started.  We just got hot and we got momentum and hopefully we don’t lose it," said Truex. "I don’t know how we got it.  I don’t know how we keep it.  I just know were going to continue to approach these races the same way and hope it works out for us.

Sunday’s race was also the first knockout race in Sprint Cup Championship chase.  Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray and Chris Buescher were eliminated as the field of contenders was cut to 12. 

The race was fairly uneventful for Dover – with just four cautions covering 22 laps. 

Tom Byrne has been a fixture covering news in Delaware for three decades. He joined Delaware Public Media in 2010 as our first news director and has guided the news team ever since. When he's not covering the news, he can be found reading history or pursuing his love of all things athletic.