Toyota Enjoys Perfect Motorsport Weekend
Perfection is a flimsy concept, but sometimes the stars align and a manufacturer like Toyota can claim to have experienced the closest thing to perfection when it comes to their motorsport aspirations. More specifically, three Toyota drivers celebrated victory in three NASCAR races this weekend, while an additional Toyota driver was crowned champion in the POWRi series. It doesn’t get much better than that.
The main event was the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, where Martin Truex Jr utterly dominated by leading 464 of 500 laps. This automatically advances him to the Championship 4, where he’ll be one of four other drivers to compete for the 2019 NASCAR Cup title.
His win also marked Toyota’s 17th of the season, a new record for the manufacturer and more than half of the 33 races that have taken place so far. “I can’t believe we just won Martinsville,” Truex Jr said after the race. “Miami is awesome, but we’ve wanted to win here for a long time. The guys have worked so hard, I’ve worked so hard. I used to just be terrible here, and just an awesome bunch of guys. What can I say, Auto Owners, Bass Pro, TRD, everybody back at the shop, brand new race car, and again, it still wants to keep going.”
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The day before, Toyota’s Todd Gililand had won his first career NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series win at Martinsville, and over in California, Toyota’s Derek Kraus won his fifth NASCAR K&N Pro Series West championship race, all but sealing the title.
Jesse Colwell, however, did seal his title in the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League in a rather unusual way: The final event in Oklahoma was cancelled on account of rain, handing him the title by default. “This is pretty amazing,” the 20-year-old said. “I would never have thought I was going to win coming from Outlaw Kart. The midgets are a lot of fun – more fun than anything I’ve ever raced. I can’t thank Keith Kunz, Pete Willoughby and everyone at KKM and Toyota enough.”
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