Move over Dale Jr.
DOVER, Del. (AP) — DEI finally took a spin in Victory Lane, only without the junior expected to drive them there.
Move over, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Make room for teammate Martin Truex Jr.
After another weekend of nonstop Earnhardt speculation, Truex gave the Dale Earnhardt Inc. team a reason for celebration in the 400-mile race at Dover International Speedway on Monday.
So much for any talk that DEI might be in rough shape without NASCAR's most popular driver. While Truex may never reach Earnhardt's league when it comes to popularity and merchandise sold, he does have the win that Junior has long coveted. Truex had a message for all the doubters about DEI's future without their superstar: the team is far from finished without Earnhardt.
"I still don't understand where everyone was coming from when they thought that DEI was going to go away just because Dale Jr. went away," he said. "It started before he started driving."
But news of longtime NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr.'s death overshadowed Truex's first career victory and even silenced the Earnhardt rumors, at least for a while.
Truex won for the first time in 58 career points races on what the New Jersey native has long considered his hometown track. He ended a dominant five-race winning streak for Hendrick Motorsports, leading 216 of the 400 laps on the Monster Mile in NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow.
Rumors have swirled for weeks about what team Earnhardt will drive for next season. Now, perhaps, Truex can talk about his win instead of the latest Earnhardt whispers.
"Junior is a great asset. Junior has been a great teammate for me. A mentor for me," Truex said. "But we can go on. We can win races. We showed that today."
Certainly the day's wait for the Autism Speaks 400 was worth it for Truex, now closing in on being one of the top 12 drivers for the Chase. He's eight points behind Mark Martin, who's 12th and running a part-time schedule this season.
"We still have stuff to work on but we are working our way there, we are getting closer each week and looking good," he said.
After rain washed out the race Sunday and fell hard overnight, blowers were still out while the cars were out on the grid waiting for their pace laps. But the sun peeked out right as the green flag dropped, which led to a clear and clean day of racing.
Pole-sitter Ryan Newman, who led most of the first half of the race and 135 laps overall, was denied his first win since 2005 and finished second. Carl Edwards, who won the Busch Series race Saturday, was third.
