Martin Truex Wins Another Playoff Race

By ESPN

Standing next to his car in Victory Lane, in this season he never thought possible, Martin Truex Jr. struggled with his emotions.

He raced to his career-best sixth victory Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and this win is worth an automatic slot in the next round of NASCAR's playoffs. He's clearly the driver to beat in this championship race, and the reality of how close it really is seemed somewhat surreal.

Then he thought about his partner, Sherry Pollex, who has ovarian cancer and chemotherapy scheduled for Monday. She couldn't come to the race, partly because her weakened immune system makes crowds too risky for her.

He choked on his words, his voice heavy as he tried not to cry.

"I couldn't hold it in anymore," he said. "Sherry, I was thinking about her because she's not here, and I know she really wanted to be. I thought about winning this first race of the round, the pressure coming off. Just a lot of things, I guess. I was wore out. I just lost it for a minute.

"There's a lot going on. It just shows how much this stuff means to us. We put everything into this, everything we have."

Truex gave Toyota yet another victory in NASCAR's playoffs -- the manufacturer is 4-for-4 so far -- on a humid day at Charlotte. Truex has two wins in the playoffs and this one was the first time in this format that Toyota has won a race in this round of postseason.

"Just a total team effort," Truex said. "Every single guy, every guy on this team just did a perfect job today and I can't be more proud of them and at this time of the year is just when you want it to happen. You dream about days like today. I don't know if we had the best car, but we damn sure got it in victory lane."

Kyle Busch, winner of the last two playoff races, wrecked early in the race yet completed it in a damaged race car. Complaining most of the 500 miles of being overheated, he needed immediate medical attention when he climbed from his car.

Busch laid in the grass, packs of ice were placed on his chest, and a stretcher was brought to him. Once he felt strong enough, he stood and walked to an ambulance. He received oxygen to treat a high carbon monoxide level.

"I felt like I was having a heat stroke," Busch said.

The humidity drained several drivers, including Truex, who had to catch his breath after taking the checkered flag.

"Seeing him after the race, how whipped he was, was kind of a shock," crew chief Cole Pearn said.

Truex won in overtime after two late cautions created extra laps and forced Truex to hold off fellow Toyota driver Denny Hamlin on a pair of restarts.

Chase Elliott finished second for the second consecutive week and sixth time in his career. He nearly won for the first time in the Cup series a week ago, but Busch ran him down and passed him for the win with one lap to go.

Harvick was third and Hamlin finished fourth. Like his teammate Busch, Hamlin was drained after the race. His firesuit was soaked with sweat stains and he needed to eat a banana to recover.

"You usually can tell hydration level from my suit," Hamlin said. "Any time it has white streaks all over it, I'm spent pretty good. I feel pretty bad, no doubt about it."

Jamie McMurray was fifth, Jimmie Johnson seventh and Ryan Blaney eighth.

Kyle Larson was 10th, Matt Kenseth 11th, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 13th, Brad Keselowski 15th and Busch 29th.

PLAYOFF STANDINGS: The bottom four in the standings headed into Talladega are Kenseth, Keselowski, Blaney and Stenhouse. But, it could have been much worse for Stenhouse, who was all over the board Sunday until he solidly cracked the top-15 late in the race.

But, Stenhouse was busted for speeding on a late pit stop and had to restart 20th. He had to scramble in the closing laps to finish 13th.

"We thought if we could be 15th to 10th it would be a good day for us," he said. "It would be nice to run top-10 all race here, but we struggled up and down."

Kyle Busch Overheats

Kyle Busch felt sick for the final 200 laps Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Not only did he blame himself for wrecking a potentially race-winning car, but he also felt much hotter than normal and inhaled carbon monoxide fumes because the crush panels had been damaged in the lap-137 crash.

Busch, who was given ice bags during pit stops, laid on the ground for a couple of minutes after the race and exited the infield care center about 40 minutes after receiving oxygen and fluids.

"I'm all right," Busch said. "I'm better now. ... It just got so hot, that literally, you felt like you were going to puke and just trying to make it to the end of the race and luckily we did.

"And from there, [they were] just trying to get cooled back down and get my body temperature back to normal." Busch said his carbon monoxide level was "in the double digits."

"I felt like I had heatstroke just from being inside the race car for 200 laps with the crush panels knocked out of it," said Busch. "Overall, it was just the hottest I've been in the car. ... I didn't feel sick from the CO or anything like that. I just felt heatstroke."

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished 29th, but he still has a 12-point cushion from the current cutoff with two races remaining in the quarterfinal round of 12 as he vies to be among the eight drivers in the semifinal round. "Obviously, it was my bad, trying to get too much, too early in the race," Busch said about his accident. "I got out too high out of the groove and got myself in the fence. ... I threw it away."

The crash Sunday was a little different than Busch's crash Friday because he wasn't running as close to the wall when he got sucked around. On Sunday, he was trying to go a little bit closer to the wall on each lap to gain more speed. He wrecked again later in the race in the same fashion.

"I was just kind of inching it up and inching it up -- apparently an inch a lap is too much," Busch said. "I ended up getting too high and just got crossed up instantly. As soon as I turned up into the corner, it was sideways."

Bowman Wins Xfinity Race

Alex Bowman proved to Dale Earnhardt Jr. he's ready to take his place next year.

In his first race in nearly a year, Bowman drove his No. 42 Chevrolet to his first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway in a rain-delayed playoff elimination race.

Bowman will replace Earnhardt next year in the No. 88 Chevrolet in the Cup series. Earnhardt is retiring after the season.

Bowman is not eligible for the Xfinity playoffs.

Justin Allgaier, William Byron, Daniel Hemric, Cole Custer, Elliott Sadler, Brennan Poole, Matt Tifft and Ryan Reed advanced to the second round of the Xfinity Series playoffs. Brendan Gaughan, Michael Annett, Blake Koch and Jeremy Clements were eliminated.

Bowman hasn't had a ride this year, instead serving as a simulator driver for Hendrick Motorsports.

He had five top-five finishes in the Xfinity series entering the night and said it was a relief to get a breakthrough win.

"Trust me, I have heard plenty of people tell me I have never won any of the NASCAR races on the top three levels," Bowman said. "It definitely gave me a mental stamp of approval that I can do it. ... Hopefully, it puts some of the people who are talking to rest because we are going into 2018 to win a lot of races in that 88 car."

He said he felt a little rusty in the car not having raced since Homestead. But that went away as the race progressed.

Reed nipped Gaughan for the final spot in the playoffs by one point. Gaughan finished in 11th place -- one spot ahead of Reed -- but it wasn't enough to catch him in the playoffs.

"That's awesome for the sport that it came down to that," Reed said. "That is about as great of a battle as you can ask for a first elimination race."

Reed said his team got a gift when a caution flag came out late and his crew was able to adjust a loose car on a pit stop. He was able to stay close enough to Gaughan's bumper to advance to the Round of 8.

Two of the fastest cars on Saturday night had problems in the second half of the race.

Daniel Suarez, who led a race-high 111 laps, had a tire problem on a pit stop with 37 laps remaining, forcing the No. 18 Toyota to head to the back of the field. He finished eighth.

Erik Jones, who won the first stage of the race, had been running with the leaders before hitting the wall with 79 laps to go.

Allgaier entered the race with the Xfinity Series lead, but his engine blew up with 86 laps left ending his night. He had damaged his car earlier in the night when he ran over debris on the racetrack causing the engine to overheat.

However, he had accumulated enough points early in the race to qualify for the second round.

"The good news is we gave ourselves a cushion just in case we had to use a mulligan. And we needed to use one," Allgaier said.

The metal display board that flashes the number for the black flag fell off the flag stand bringing out a caution with 58 laps remaining.

The metal box fell onto the track but did not damage any cars.

There was also a scary moment in the second half of the race when Telvin McClurkin, a member of Reed's team, got his foot caught under the front of the car and went for a brief ride. However, McClurkin was fine and continued to work.