SONOMA, Calif. (June 28, 2015) — Martin Truex Jr. took a hard hit, which ended his day prematurely with a 42nd-place finish in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
The typical aggressive road racing at Sonoma’s 11-turn, 1.99-mile circuit bit Truex on Lap 28 of 110 when the No. 55 car (David Ragan) slammed Truex’s Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevy off the track into the tire wall. At the time of the incident, which brought out the red flag, Truex was running in 18th place with a number of cars in front of him on a different pit-stop cycle.
The No. 78 car suffered major front-end damage and was towed to the garage while Truex was seen and released from the infield medical care center.
The Furniture Row crew immediately went to work to make repairs but when the damaged and hoodless car returned to the track on Lap 75 it was determined that Truex could not gain any positions. Truex then drove the car back to the garage where it was parked.
“We got wrecked, bottom line,” said Truex. “Definitely a tough day. I felt like we had a decent car all weekend. We were off a little bit that first run, made some adjustments and felt like it helped. When you restart around 20th it’s just a recipe for disaster. I was trying to be aggressive, made some moves. I had a couple of cars passed and then the lane I was in jammed up and the guys I had passed got back by me. You just get frustrated, you lose patience and I got into the No. 55 doors a little bit in Turn 7 and I guess he didn’t like it and he figured he would just dump me. He probably has one coming, but other than that it’s just part of the restart deal.”
Truex added, “It’s just unfortunate that happened, but that is part of the craziness. We had a decent car, made some adjustments and felt like we made a big improvement . We just didn’t get to show it.”
Truex qualified 12th and when he came in for his pit stop on Lap 21 he was positioned in 14th place.
The good news for Truex is that he remains second in Sprint Cup driver points.
The race winner was Kyle Busch. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Kurt Busch, clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish Jr.
The race had five cautions for 21 laps and there were nine lead changes among five drivers.
The next Sprint Cup Series race is Sunday night (July 5) at Daytona International Speedway.
