Clean Sweep!

Martin Truex Jr. sweeps all three race stages after claiming the pole at Kentucky Speedway to win the Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart

For the second year in a row, Martin Truex Jr. completely dominated the field at Kentucky Speedway to capture the checkered flag for the Quaker State 400. Truex took the pole on Friday and led a race high 174 laps on his way to winning all three race stages. It is the fourth Cup Series victory of the season for Truex, who has combined with Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch to win 14 of 19 races this year.

"It feels good, you know?" said Truex. "You never know how these races are going to play out. You never know quite what is going to happen and we had such a strong Toyota tonight they weren’t going to beat us. You never know how they’re going to turn out, so we just keep our heads down."

The only problems Truex had all night occurred after the race. After performing the customary post-race burnout in front of the grandstands, Truex climbed outside of the No.78 to salute the fans and his car started rolling down the track away from him. After the car came to a stop, Truex climbed back in and promptly got lost on his way to victory lane.

"The NASCAR official took me down the wrong turn and he disappeared," said Truex. "I couldn't see anything because I was overheating so bad. Dang windshield was fogged up and I couldn't see anything, but I finally made it here (victory lane). Man, what an awesome night."

After winning seven out of eleven "cookie-cutter" races last season, Truex had to wait until the seventh 1.5 mile race to claim his first cookie-cutter race this year. With the win, Truex becomes the first Cup Series driver to claim back-to-back victories at Kentucky Speedway, which began hosting Cup races in 2011.

Ryan Blaney finished runner-up nearly two seconds behind Truex, his highest finish so far this season. It was a strong comeback after finishing 40th at Daytona last week, but Blaney wasn't satisfied after the race.

"It’s not a win," said Blaney. "It’s a positive, that’s for sure. I hate it. I thought we were in a good spot there restarting fourth and Martin struggled a little bit the first couple laps and I thought I could get by him, but just couldn’t quite get a run on him. His car came in and mine kind of faded a little bit and he won the race. That stunk. Hopefully, we can keep it going in the right direction."

Blaney's Team Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski battled back from being two laps down after a pit road speeding penalty in Stage One to finish in third place. Keselowski, whose three career wins at Kentucky leads all drivers, used a two tire pit stop after Stage 2 to assume the race lead on Lap 164 to begin the final segment. However, Truex tracked him down by Lap 201.

"Obviously, we wanted to win here at Kentucky," Keselowski said. "We had a solid run up front, led a bunch of laps there at one point. We really didn’t have anything there for the 78, but we led laps and kept them honest."

It was a strong performance for Team Penske Racing with their third driver, Joey Logano, finishing in tenth place. Penske has been playing catch-up to Stewart-Haas Racing all season to determine which team has the best set of Ford Fusions. The Penske teams took a serious step forward Saturday night.

Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick finished in fourth and fifth place respectively. The duo continued their impressive performances on the cookie-cutters this season, they had each won three of the previous six 1.5 mile races this year. The fifth place finish was a career best for Harvick at Kentucky.

Kurt Busch, Erik Jones, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson and Joey Logano round out the top-ten. Larson had to fight hard to claim ninth place. He was forced to start the race from the back of the field after missing driver introductions and then had track bar issues during the final segment which required a long pit stop to make a severe wedge adjustment.

Before the race, Truex stressed the importance of accruing more playoff points for the rapidly approaching Chase for the Cup. He came through in a big way by winning Stage 1 and Stage 2, claiming two bonus points for the postseason. 2018 marks the second season for Stage racing, Truex remains the only driver to win a segment at Kentucky with his second consecutive clean sweep at the track.

Click here for full race results.

Kyle Busch remains the leader of the NASCAR drivers points standings. Kevin Harvick sits in second place 59 points behind Busch, while Martin Truex Jr. is in third 110 points behind. Joey Logano remains in fourth place 151 points behind Busch.

You can see the updated Driver's Points Standings here.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will head to New England next week for the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 22nd.

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_{Photo credits: Yzukerman CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons}

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_{Author: @chops316
Editor: @liberty-minded}

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