Furniture Row Racing driver remains 2nd in driver points
HAMPTON, Ga. (Feb. 28, 2016) — Martin Truex Jr. had mixed feelings about his seventh-place finish in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Truex, who led six times for 34 laps, was comfortably running fourth when a caution came out with one lap remaining in regulation. When the race restarted for the overtime finish he was positioned on the outside, which wasn’t the preferred lane. To make matters worse on the restart the car in front of Truex spun the tires, which initially slowed the No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota.
Truex had time to regain his momentum, but the scheduled two-lap dash to the finish actually ended by the third turn of the first overtime lap due to a multicar wreck on the backstretch.
“We had one of the cars to beat in the middle of the race and ran in the top three or four the entire day,” said Truex. “That’s disappointing to finish where we did. I hated the way the last restart worked out for us. But looking at the big picture I feel we’re starting out the season stronger than the way we ended last season.
“That’s exciting for all of us. The guys worked hard over the off-season to get ready. They deserve it and everybody at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) has really helped us along — helped us to get off the ground strong and can’t thank them enough for that. Lot of exciting stuff going on and looking forward to going to Vegas next weekend, a place that’s been good to us the last couple of years.”
Truex, who finished runner-up in last week’s Daytona 500, remains second in the driver point standings, three points behind leader Kyle Busch.
The Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 was the first race with the low downforce cars, which saw plenty of exciting slipping and sliding on the 1.54-mile oval.
“As was expected the cars were a handful to drive today — totally out of control,” said Truex, who has posted four top-10 finishes in the last five races at Atlanta. “I like this track, even if it is one of the slickest on the circuit. But the race was a good learning day for us. It could have turned out even better, we were just in the wrong spot on that final restart.”
The race winner was Jimmie Johnson. Rounding out the top-10 in order were Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick, Truex, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
The race had three cautions for 13 laps and there 28 lead changes among eight drivers.
The next Sprint Cup Series race is Sunday, March 6 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
