Martin Truex Jr. holds the trophy after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Sonoma Raceway, Sunday, June 11, 2023, in Sonoma, Calif. (AP News photo)

By Tom Zulewski

SONOMA – As good as Martin Truex Jr. has been at Sonoma Raceway, he didn’t win either of the first two stages on June 11. When it came down to winning the flag that mattered, Truex left no doubt how good he was.

Taking the lead away from Chase Elliott with 14 laps to go, Truex cruised to the checkered flag and won the Toyota/SaveMart 350 for the fourth time in his career. The driver of the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing beat former teammate Kyle Busch by nearly three full seconds.

“We had some issues last year where we would show up at road courses and kind of outsmart ourselves,” said Truex, who led four times for a race-high 51 laps. ‘Reinvent the wheel, come up with some super-crazy trick setup because we knew our cars weren’t as good as the other manufacturers.”

After a 26th-place finish in last year’s Sonoma race, the offseason work on the road courses paid off in an impressive turnaround for Truex on Sunday.

“There’s a lot to this that’s really hard to explain,” he said. “Tons of work in the offseason on everything. Road courses and short tracks were a big focus for Toyota and JGR.”

As for racing and beating his former teammate, Truex gave Busch a full helping of respect.

“In 17 or 18 years, we’ve had maybe two run-ins where it was maybe ‘hey, I was stupid,’” Truex said. “We’ve had great races and finished 1-2 a lot of times. He’s great to race with and I’d race him any day of the week for a win.”

Busch led once for 17 laps and was able to take the lead from Truex after the first caution came out for an uncontrolled tire on pit road at lap 51, four laps before the end of Stage 2 in the 110-lap race. He held on to earn a playoff point ahead of Joey Logano, but In the final stage, Busch couldn’t catch Truex after the last restart.

Logano rallied after qualifying 17th to finish third.

“It’s a comeback from yesterday, for sure. We were awful,” Logano said. “I woke up this morning and thought a top-10 would feel pretty good. We were competitive, not the best car, but had good strategy and a little bit of luck.”

With his second win of the season and 33rd of his career, Truex moved into the points lead by 13 ahead of William Byron. Chris Buescher and Elliott completed the top five finishers.

Denny Hamlin qualified on the pole, led all of the first 32 laps and easily won Stage 1, but ran into trouble on lap 93 after a wreck near the starting line. He finished 36th.

The race had only two cautions for six laps, and the winner’s average speed was 81.989 mph around the 12-turn road course. The NASCAR Cup Series will be idle this week and return June 25 at Nashville Superspeedway.