Martin Truex Jr. wins the 2016 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Putting a season’s worth of frustration behind him, Martin Truex Jr. blitzed the field to score a dominant victory Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Truex started on the pole and led a NASCAR-record 588 miles of a possible 600 miles in winning the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR’s longest race. The victory was the first of the year for Truex and Furniture Row Racing after several near-misses.

“Just a lot of emotion right not and not real sure it’s sunk in yet,” Truex said. “But just an amazing day, an amazing weekend for all of us and just a weekend you dream about.”

In the season-opening Daytona 500, Truex finished second to Denny Hamlin by the closest margin in race history (0.010 seconds). Then came races at Texas Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway where he dominated only for circumstances to work against him late in both events. He led 141 laps but finished sixth at Texas due to strategy that backfired, and led 172 laps but finished 14th at Kansas because of a loose wheel.

“We never looked at it like negatively and said, ‘You know, man, we’ve got to win or we’re never going to get a chance,’” Truex said. “I think it was a positive thing. We took it in stride and continued to work hard and just looked at each week as a new opportunity.

“I think it shows a lot of the character of the team. We’ve got a really tight group of guys that work really well together and have a lot of confidence in each other. It’s good to see that they never give up and they just keep fighting and they work hard, so they deserve winning.”

Kevin Harvick finished runner-up to Truex by 2.5 seconds on Sunday. Jimmie Johnson placed third, with Hamlin fourth and Brad Keselowski fifth. Neither Harvick nor Johnson could mount a serious push to challenge Truex, who led 392 of 400 laps. Johnson passed Truex on a restart with 55 laps remaining, but Truex went back around on the following lap.

“They have had a few runs where they have just been the class of the field and things have kept them from Victory Lane,” Johnson said of Truex and Furniture Row. ”(Sunday) he wasn’t going to be denied, there was no way around that.

“I kind of felt like he was playing with us. He was so fast.”

Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

Because of the blazing pace exhibited by Truex, he broke the track record for average speed (160.644 mph) and fastest race (three hours, 44 minutes, eight second). Both marks had been set by Kasey Kahne (155.687 mph; time of three hours, 51 minutes, 15 seconds) in the 2012 Coca-Cola 600.