Stat Sheet: The Most Dominant Performances of Martin Truex Jr.’s Career

When Martin Truex Jr. wins, he wins.

Monday’s (July 17) NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was no exception.

Truex led 84.4% of the race and 254 of the 301 laps en route to the victory, his first at The Magic Mile. It was a long time coming, as Truex now leads all active drivers with 1,170 laps led on the 1.058-mile oval.

Not only was it one of the most dominant performances of his career, but it was also one of the most dominant performances in New Hampshire’s 30 years on the Cup schedule.

It was just the sixth time that a driver led more than 200 laps in a race at the track, and Truex became the fourth driver to win while doing so.

N.H. Race	Driver	Laps Led	Finish
Sept. 2000	Jeff Burton	300	1st
Nov. 2001	Jeff Gordon	257	15th
July 2023	Martin Truex Jr.	254	1st
July 2005	Tony Stewart	232	1st
Sept. 2007	Clint Bowyer	222	1st
Sept. 2015	Kevin Harvick	216	21st

The third most dominant race in NHMS history in terms of laps led, where does Truex’s triumph rank among his own wins? By percentage of laps led, it’s fourth.

Date	Track	Laps Led	%
May 2016	Charlotte	392/400	98.0
October 2019	Martinsville	464/500	92.8
May 2021	Darlington	248/293	84.6
July 2023	New Hampshire	254/301	84.4
June 2019	Sonoma	59/90	65.6
July 2018	Kentucky	174/267	65.2
March 2018	Fontana	125/200	62.5
June 2015	Pocono	97/160	60.6
June 2018	Sonoma	62/110	56.4
March 2017	Las Vegas	150/267	56.2

Altogether, Truex has led more than half the race in 12 of his 34 wins and more than 40% of the race in 16 of his 34 wins. He also led the most laps in 19 of the 34.

Truex doesn’t have many wins where he came out of nowhere either. While most Hall of Fame-caliber drivers in the 21st century have at least a win or a handful of wins where they led single digits laps – Kyle Busch, Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano all do – Truex has led at least 20 laps in all of his wins.

In addition, Truex only has two Cup wins (the 2016 Southern 500 and 2021 Martinsville) where he led less than 10% of the race distance.

All of this makes sense given that Truex has led 12,036 laps in his Cup career, good enough for 17th all time; he is currently tied with Kurt Busch for 25th on the all-time win list.

Leading laps isn’t the only way Truex has dominated throughout his career, however. He also has a knack for pulling a significant gap on second place when taking the checkered flag.

Since 2006 – Truex’s rookie season – there have been 27 Cup races that had a margin of victory greater than seven seconds. Not all of the margins were a result of pure speed, as there have been plenty of fuel mileage finishes in the last 17 years. When excluding those races, there have been 12 races since 2006 where a driver pulled a seven-second margin on race pace alone.

Date	Track	Driver	Margin of Victory (seconds)
June 2007	Dover	Martin Truex Jr.	7.355
May 2010	Dover	Kyle Busch	7.551
Oct. 2010	Kansas	Greg Biffle	7.638
April 2011	Texas	Matt Kenseth	8.315
Oct. 2016	Dover	Martin Truex Jr.	7.527
Sept. 2017	Chicago	Martin Truex Jr.	7.179
March 2018	Auto Club	Martin Truex Jr.	11.685
May 2018	Dover	Kevin Harvick	7.450
June 2018	Sonoma	Martin Truex Jr.	10.513
May 2019	Dover	Martin Truex Jr.	9.501
March 2020	Auto Club	Alex Bowman	8.904
May 2021	Charlotte	Kyle Larson	10.051

Twelve races, and Truex was the winner in six of them; no one else appeared on the list more than once.

Moving on to next weekend’s race at Pocono Raceway, Truex retook the regular season points lead after winning at New Hampshire. Prior to 2023, the last time he was the regular season points leader was after five races of the 2018 season.

Meanwhile, it’s not a given that he will be back for 2024. But whether he comes back or decides to call it quits at the end of the season, last weekend showed that he can still dominate.