r happened.But the six-point lead he had over Busch in the first round has now been wiped away, with all 12 drivers who advanc

DOVER, Del. -- Martin Truex Jr. met with New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi five days before the race Sunday at Dover International Speedway.They talked about their charities. They talked about living out their dreams in the sports they love.Truex isnt even a Yankees fan (hes more a Philadelphia sports guy). But he respects people who live their passion and are successful. So now hes a little bit of a Yankees fan after meeting Girardi.There probably are a few more Truex fans after the Citizen Soldier 400, and definitely more since the season started. He has performed at the level that brings back memories of the Yankees of the 1990s, the dynasty era where every time they stepped on the field, their opponents knew they had to be at their best for a chance to win.Truex left Dover having won his fourth race in the past 17 Sprint Cup events, and he did it in convincing fashion, leading 187 of the 400 laps and with a margin of victory of 7.527 seconds on second-place Kyle Busch.The leader in laps led this season, Truex has paced the field for an amazing 19.1 percent of all laps in Sprint Cup. For a Furniture Row team that made a switch from Chevrolet to Toyota in the offseason, he continues to make a statement that while he was among the four finalists in 2015, he is the favorite for 2016.I guess right now its just our time, Truex said. Throughout the summer, we led so many laps and had so many great race cars and so many great weekends that things would happen [and wed lose].Sometimes it was just rotten luck, sometimes it was mistakes or just circumstances that didnt play out. But I think that the biggest thing is we just kept our heads in the game.?We stayed focused on the things that truly matter, and when all that bad luck went away, here we are. I mean, its just been amazing.Granted, Jimmie Johnson, who had led 90 laps on his way to a seventh-place finish, had a car that could rival, and likely beat, Truex. But his jack man jumped off the wall too early on a pit stop with 122 laps remaining, forcing Johnson to come down pit road under green and never getting the caution to get caught back up.We just really had a flawless day, Truex crew chief Cole Pearn said. Were hitting on all cylinders right now. Every track we go to, even the tracks we havent been good in the past, weve been pretty good at. ... We were good, but that 48 [of Johnson] was just as good.Truex figured there would be a caution, and hed have his lead wiped out. That never happened.But the six-point lead he had over Busch in the first round has now been wiped away, with all 12 drivers who advanced to the quarterfinal round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup even at 3,000 points.That means Austin Dillon, the last driver to advance with an 11-point edge on Tony Stewart, has the same amount of points as Truex. The same is true for the others who advanced: Kyle Busch (second at Dover), Chase Elliott (third), Brad Keselowski (fourth), Matt Kenseth (fifth), Joey Logano (sixth), Johnson, Dillon (eighth), Denny Hamlin (ninth), Carl Edwards (14th), Kurt Busch (15th) and Kevin Harvick (37th). Stewart, Jamie McMurray, Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher failed to advance.While the 12 quarterfinalists have the same points, Truex has had a better season than pretty much anyone else this year. He has four wins (tied with Busch and Keselowski for the most), but three of those wins have come in the past five races, including two in the Chase.After the next three races, Truex could look back and know that while he has four wins, it could be for naught as what happens in the next three races will determine whether he remains in the championship hunt.The team doesnt feel as if it should lose a step.Weve been good all year, so I dont really know how you can say weve peaked too early, Pearn said. At the end of the day, this was kind of an icing-on?the?cake win. We didnt need it per se, but youre not going to turn it down.Martin has had a lot of wins taken away from him in his career, so to be able to make up for lost time in a way is good. Youve just got to keep it rolling. We didnt do anything extravagant today. We brought a good car, we made solid pit stops, we never made any mistakes, and we won.That lost time was several seasons where he could have earned more than one win but never had a season where he won more than once. He entered this year with just three career victories.Ive always had enough [success] throughout my career to kind of lean on those times where I thought maybe it wasnt going the way I needed it to go; where I didnt have the things I needed to have to compete with some of these guys, Truex said. I just continued to drive and push and never give up.[Im] lucky enough to get with a great race team. It started out rough for us, but we continued to work, and we all worked in the same direction and believed in each other. Ryan Miller Ducks Jersey . The Hall of Fame defenceman told Landsberg that he believes fighting still has a place in todays game, but thinks staged fighting needs be outlawed. Anaheim Ducks Jerseys . -- Jonathan Drouin gave Halifax the boost it needed to edge host Sherbrooke Phoenix 3-2 in a shootout in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. http://www.authenticduckspro.com/Cam-fowler-ducks-jersey/ . Brad Jacobs and his Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., team took control of the game early. Scott Niedermayer Ducks Jersey . White came in fourth place in the event. He was the two-time defending gold medallist. The gold medal went to Swiss snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov. Ryan Kesler Ducks Jersey . Reigning world champion Eve Muirhead of Scotland opened with a 12-2 rout of Winnipegs Jennifer Jones in a battle of teams bound for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. It had been in Hamilton - just under six years ago - that Misbah-ul-Haqs captaincy had really got off the ground. On a track that had started out with a little pace and carry, Pakistan restricted New Zealand to 275, then put on 367 themselves. With the first innings having ended only just before tea on day three, the match appeared to be heading to a fifth day - even a draw on the cards, perhaps.This would not do for Pakistans attack.Spinner Abdur Rehman made the first second-innings incision, removing Tim Macintosh soon after tea. Then, in one session of searing reverse-swing, Wahab Riaz and Umar Gul tore New Zealand apart, tailing balls into pads, roughing batsmen up with short balls, and taking four wickets for a single run at one stage. The quicks shared 6 for 66 between them, and Rehman claimed three for himself, while New Zealand lost 10 wickets for 74 in a 27-over stretch that would go on to define the series. This was Misbahs first of what is currently 24 Test wins as captain.Pakistan may be missing both Misbah and Rehman on this trip to Hamilton, but the hosts are aware their opposition remains dangerous. Wahab didnt play in Christchurch, but with the Seddon Park surface generally offering pace and bounce, as well as reverse swing, he may feature in the XI. Yasir Shah was muted in Christchurch, but will perhaps find the warmer climes of the North Island more to his liking.New Zealand batsman Henry Nicholls said that even a victory as comprehensive as theirs in Christchurch, may not necessarily breed another here.I managed to spend a little bbit of time in the middle in Christchurch, but the nature of Hamilton is that youre going to be faced with different challenges - especially with their strong seam attack, he said.dddddddddddd Yasirs also one of the best spinners in the world, so when youre playing these top teams youre always being challenged. I dont think youre ever quite dominating them or anything like that.Rare is the series in which Yasir does not make an impact, and it is he who has produced the definitive bowling performances in Pakistans away tours over the past two years - in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and England.It wasnt long ago Yasir was the No. 1 bowler in the world, Nicholls said. Im sure Pakistan will be hoping hell bowl a few overs and be threatening. We even saw in the second innings at Hagley [Oval] that he got a bit more turn and was a real threat.For Yasir to come into the game, however, Pakistans batsmen will need to muster more runs than they had managed in Christchurch. Their preparation for the tour had been hampered when their sole practice encounter had been washed out in Nelson, but they have now had a taste for New Zealand conditions in their Christchurch outing.The nature of when you play in different conditions is that the more you play in them, you hope to get better, Nicholls said. Were expecting them to be at the top of their game. And itll be the same for us - well be looking to improve on our performance from Hagley as well. ' ' '