FORT WORTH, TX.(April 10 2016) – Despite running in the top-10 for a majority of Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Texas Motor Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. drove his Zest Ford to a 16th-place finish after a late-race accident damaged his machine.
“Our Zest Ford was really solid all night,” Stenhouse said afterwards. “We ran in the top 10 the whole race and didn’t get the finish that this team deserved. They brought a really good car and we were really fast and felt good about our performance, so that’s what we’ve got to look at. Our pit road was really good today. All in all I’m really happy with the weekend with our qualifying effort and the way we ran. It’s just a bummer that we got a little damage there at the end. I didn’t really have a chance after that.”
After advancing to round three of qualifying on Friday, the two-time XFINITY Series Champion started the 334-lap race in the fifth position after a two-hour delay due to rain throughout the day.
The Olive Branch, Mississippi native solidly ran in the top-10 for a majority of the race before being collected in a 13-car accident with less than 40 laps remaining the Duck Commander 500.
The Zest Ford suffered left front damage after Stenhouse barely clipped the No. 3 machine. The crew worked feverishly over three pit stops to repair the mangled machine keeping Stenhouse on the lead lap.
With the race going green for the final 33 laps, the damage was too much to overcome forcing Stenhouse to settle with a 16th-place finish.
Stenhouse and the No. 17 team travel to Bristol Motor Speedway next weekend for the Food City 500 on Sunday, April 17. Race coverage starts at 1:00 pm EST on FOX.
