Martin Truex Jr. wins playoff opener at Las Vegas

Truex passed Kevin Harvick with 20 of 267 laps remaining and went on to cruise to victory in Sunday night’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, taking the first win in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Truex had won four times this season but his most recent victory came in June at Sonoma, Calif., and had not finished better than 13th in the last three races.

The win is the 24th of his career and the victory locks Truex into the second round of the playoffs regardless of how he finishes in the next two races.

"The magic was back today, that's for sure," Truex said after the race. "We took a gamble this weekend; thanks to everybody back at the shop. We took a gamble and qualified 24th and for a while there we weren't looking too smart.

"We got the right adjustments at the end and had a great car all night long. I want to thank everyone who makes this happen for us. We're on our way to making a championship run. We'll get a lot of points and go to the next round.

"That run before when (Harvick) was just running away from us we got too loose and I had to baby it for too long. I told (crew chief Cole Pearn) that he needed to tighten me up some more so I could hustle.

"We hustled all the way to the checkers and got the job done there."

Brad Keselowski finished third, Chase Elliott was fourth and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-five.

Completing the top-10 finishers were Alex Bowman, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman.

Stage 3

Following the break between Stages 2 and 3, all of the lead-lap card elected to pit with Truex the first off pit road.

During the pit stops, Larson was penalized on his pit stop for a safety violation and had to restart from the rear of the field.

On the restart on Lap 168, Truex was followed by Logano, Elliott, Harvick and Bowman.

Elliott went three-wide on Lap 169 and came away with second place. Less than a lap later, Elliott went to the inside of Truex and came away with the lead for the first time in the race.

On Lap 180, shortly after reporting a tire rub, Byron spun off Turn 4 to bring out a caution. All of the lead-lap cars elected to pit and Hamlin – thanks to a two-tire pit stop – was first off pit road.

Austin Dillon was penalized for an uncontrolled tire penalty during his stop and had to restart from the rear of the field.

On the restart on Lap 186, Hamlin led the way followed by Blaney, Newman and Daniel Suarez (all on two tires) and Harvick was fifth, the first on four new tires.

Blaney quickly made his way around Hamlin and into the lead on the restart only to see Harvick power past both of them and into the lead himself.

On Lap 188, Kurt Busch had a tire go down and hit the Turn 3 wall hard to bring out a caution. 

Several lead-lap cars elected to pit but Harvick remained on the track and led on the restart on Lap 196. He was followed by Blaney, Newman, Truex and Denny Hamlin.

With 60 laps to go in the race, Harvick had moved out to a 2.3-second lead over Truex as Blaney ran in third. Keselowski moved up to fourth and Bowman ran fifth.

Keselowski – who wasn’t in contention for the win most of the race – moved up to third with 50 laps to go. Harvick remained out front with a comfortable 4-second lead.

Several cars began a final round of green-flag pit stops on Lap 229. Once the cycle of stops was complete on Lap 246, Harvick remained in the lead but with only slight advantage over Truex.

On Lap 247, Truex was able to get around Harvick on the outside and claim the lead for himself.

With 10 laps remaining, Truex had pulled out to a 2.2-second lead over Harvick as Keselowski ran in third.

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Laps Led
1	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	267		32
2	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	267	4.173	47
3	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	267	6.344
4	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	267	6.60	12
5	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	267	9.086	1
6	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	267	15.381
7	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	267	19.865	6
8	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	267	24.531	2
9	22	Joey Logano	Ford	267	24.839	105
10	6	Ryan Newman	Ford	267	25.261
11	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	267	25.273
12	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	267	25.633
13	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	267	29.577	3
14	21	Paul Menard	Ford	267	29.888
15	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	267	30.256	3
16	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	267	31.763
17	8	Daniel Hemric	Chevrolet	267	31.772
18	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	266	1 lap	1
19	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	266	1 lap
20	41	Daniel Suarez	Ford	266	1 lap	29
21	95	Matt DiBenedetto	Toyota	266	1 lap	9
22	38	David Ragan	Ford	266	1 lap
23	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	266	1 lap
24	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	266	1 lap	16
25	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	266	1 lap	2
26	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	265	2 laps
27	47	Ryan Preece	Chevrolet	265	2 laps
28	32	Corey Lajoie	Ford	265	2 laps
29	00	Landon Cassill	Chevrolet	265	2 laps
30	36	Matt Tifft	Ford	264	3 laps
31	15	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	262	5 laps
32	53	J.J. Yeley	Chevrolet	260	7 laps
33	51	B.J. McLeod	Chevrolet	259	8 laps
34	27	Joe Nemechek	Chevrolet	257	10 laps
35	52	Garrett Smithley	Chevrolet	255	12 laps
36	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	254	13 laps
37	77	Reed Sorenson	Chevrolet	250	17 laps
38	66	Joey Gase	Toyota	249	18 laps
39	1	Kurt Busch	Chevrolet	187	80 laps