Truex’s first win puts DEI back on top

? DEI returned to Victory Lane with a junior – Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s unheralded and previously winless teammate, Martin Truex Jr.

After another weekend of nonstop Earnhardt speculation, Truex gave the Dale Earnhardt Inc. team a much-needed victory in the 400-mile race at Dover International Speedway on Monday.

“It feels good to hush up all that and solidify the fact that we are here for real,” Truex said. “We are going to win races and contend for championships in the future.”

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.

His message was this: DEI is far from finished even without Junior.

“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.

“The Chase is definitely not out of the question for us, especially with the momentum we have,” Truex said. “I think we’ve got what it takes to do it. We’ve still got a ways to go to have a shot at the championship. We’ve still got stuff to work on.”

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.