It was a battle of attrition, but the best car won anyway.
Martin Truex Jr. had the fastest car all race. It took time for him to get to the front, but once he did, no one could compete.
Truex (No. 19) set the fastest time in practice yesterday and showed pace all day, but he had a rough qualifying that saw him start sixth in the second heat race.
It’s a sharp contrast to his disastrous race last year, which saw him post the third slowest qualifying time, make no progress in his heat, finish last in his Last Chance Qualifying race and advance to the Clash race on last year’s points, only to spin on the last lap and finish last.
“It’s fun to come here, but it’s a lot more fun to win it,” Truex said. “Last year wasn’t all that fun. This weekend was a blast.”
The day started with four action-packed heat races won by Aric Almirola (No. 10), Truex, Denny Hamlin (No. 11) and William Byron (No. 24).
The two LCQ races were less dramatic — packs quickly spread out and there wasn’t much passing. Ty Gibbs (No. 54) tried to pass for the lead in the second LCQ, but his efforts were very cautious, not wanting to damage his car ahead of the later race.
The first half of the final race was a strong advertisement for NASCAR in metropolitan Los Angeles: The few cautions didn’t significantly impact the run time, there were a lot of opportunities to pass and there were interesting strategic decisions and action up front.
The second half — the post-Wiz Khalifa era — was a disaster. Six cautions came out in the first 11 laps. The last 75 laps as a whole featured 11 cautions.
That second half came after a 30-minute break in action with the sun going down. By the time cars were running again, the track had cooled significantly.
“The track is brand new pavement. These tires don’t like to cool off,” Truex said. “You’re just sliding so bad on restarts that guys would get in the corner and they’re locking the brakes, they can’t turn, can’t get the rear to hook up. So they’re just sliding into each other, and that was, I’m sure, a big factor.”
The accident frequency was a sharp contrast to last year.
“Last year’s show I felt like was relatively clean and good racing — some bumping, some banging — but we could run long stretches of green,” third-place finisher Kyle Busch (No. 18) said. “Today was, I would call it a disaster.”
Another reason for incidents was increased parity, runner-up Austin Dillon (No. 3) said. Last year, the field spread was wider and cars didn’t make contact as frequently. This year, the most reliable way to pass was by ramming the car in front.
“Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a great event. It’s a great atmosphere,” fifth-place finisher Alex Bowman (No. 48) said. “It’s tough when it takes 45 minutes to make like six laps or whatever that was.”
Earlier in the weekend, there were discussions of turning the Clash into a points race next year to guarantee a Southern California points race with Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway off the schedule for renovations. Drivers were not enthusiastic about that idea.
“Why would you want to screw it up and make it a points race? It’s like a one-off deal, the Clash,” Truex said. “Since I’ve been doing it, it just kind of got boring, from back in the day when it was just pole winners from last year, then it was champions, and then it was everybody that made the playoffs. It just got all weird, and now this is really cool. It’s got its own identity, fun race, all the way out here in a cool venue that’s got a lot of history.”
The Clash has not been confirmed to return to Los Angeles next year but without Auto Club, it seems possible that the Coliseum will host NASCAR again.