LONG POND – A bad pit stop didn’t faze Martin Truex Jr.

Neither did a late-race restart.

Truex overcame some adversity and his competition to prevail Sunday in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400, picking up his second career win at the track and his second victory of the season.

“Awesome day by everybody on the team,” said Truex. “We had to battle a little bit back from a bad pit stop, but just in general had a really good car. Everybody did a great job all weekend long and made the right decisions.

“Just happy today that things kind of went our way a little bit for once. It’s been tough lately, but it was an awesome day, awesome place to win, and really proud of everybody.”

Truex overcame some late-race drama to secure the win.

The first incident came when Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman made contact in Turn 1 to bring out a caution on Lap 148 of the 160-lap race.

An incident involving Joey Logano and Erik Jones on the frontstretch as the cars were coming to the green flag on the ensuing restart brought out the final caution on Lap 152, and forced the final restart with seven laps to go.

Truex, who led 31 laps, chose not to pit after a debris caution with 20 laps to go, and it paid off. He held off runner-up Kyle Larson and third-place finisher Kyle Busch in the closing stages to pick up his 17th career win in his No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/5-Hour ENERGY Toyota.

“Well, the final restart, really the end of the race just kind of played into our hands,” said Truex. “We decided to stay out there when some guys pitted. Like four of us stayed out or whatever. But yeah, really, we were good on scuffs (tires) yesterday in practice, and Cole (Pearn, crew chief) said to stay out, and I was like, ‘I think this is a good idea.’ So luckily it worked out for us.

“We ran some really fast laps at the end, but the restarts are always – always a question mark. You’re always a little bit nervous just hoping two guys don’t get that bumper-to-bumper kind of tandem thing going and get a run on you. We were able to hold them off, and I felt like if we could get to Turn 1 with the lead, I felt pretty confident we could hold them off, and that was the case.”

After starting fourth, Truex dominated early, winning the first 50-lap stage. But a slow pit stop between stages dropped Truex back to 14th for the restart.

Truex worked his way back up to fourth at the end of the second 50-lap stage before retaking control in the final 60 laps.

Kevin Harvick won the second stage and led a race-high 89 laps, but was shuffled back to fourth.

“We had a good car all day, just came down to really losing control of the race on the last pit stop,” said Harvick. “Really not pitting, or pitting didn’t really seem to matter.

“We lost control to the 18 (Kyle Busch) and wound up losing a couple more spots on the restart starting on the inside, and that was the end of the day. Car was fast and everybody did a great job, it just didn’t work out.”

Larson worked his way through the field after starting 13th. He was eighth at the end of Stage 2, and sixth after the second stage.

“I felt like my car today was kind of as good as it’s been all year,” said Larson. “I feel like Hendrick guys have definitely gotten better, as well as RCR (Richard Childress Racing) guys. But I feel like I’ve kind of just been a step behind the 18 (Kyle Busch), the 78 (Truex) and the 4 (Harvick).

“I definitely felt like the 4 had the most power down the straightaways today, the little bit I was in front of him there at the end. I felt like even when I get a good exit off of (Turn) 3, he would close on me a lot, compared to the 18 and the 78 a little bit, but the 4 was definitely really fast.”

Busch led 13 laps and was at the front of the field most of the day, but he elected to pit from the lead with 20 laps to go for fresh tires while Truex, Larson and Harvick stayed out.

“Yeah, it was a little disappointing that the tires didn’t really mean anything more than they did there at the end with guys that had 10, 11 laps on their tires, and they were able to outrun us and beat us for us having fresher rubber,” said Busch, who won the July race at Pocono last year, and dominated last week’s Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

POINTERS … Busch leads the point standings, 87 clear of Harvick. Logano (-90), Truex (-137) and Brad Keselowski (-150) make up the top-five.

NO REPEAT … Pole-sitter Ryan Blaney, who got his first career Cup victory at Pocono last June, finished sixth.