Running 3rd, No. 78 driver gets collected in wreck
BRISTOL, Tenn. (Aug. 21, 2016) – The rain clouds disappeared late Sunday afternoon to resume the rain-delayed race at Bristol Motor Speedway, but the dark cloud of bad luck continued to plague Martin Truex Jr.
Truex was running third when the second-place car of Kyle Busch spun on Lap 358 of 500. As cars were attempting to avoid the spinning car, Truex’s No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/NRA Museum Toyota got trapped and shoved into the wall, resulting in major damage and a 23rd-place finish.
“This is getting old,” said Truex. “We were running in the top five and top three most of the day until we became a victim of someone else’s problem. The only silver lining is that we’re in the Chase and hopefully all this bad luck will be behind us when the Chase starts.”
When the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race was called for rain Saturday after completing 48 laps Truex was running in sixth place.
“We felt good about the way we started the race last night and we came right back today with another strong start,” explained Truex. “There’s no concrete explanation why this is happening to us. The only thing that is concrete is that we have fast race cars every week. We just have to work through this and be totally focused on the next race.”
Truex remained eighth in driver points and 10th in Chase playoff points.
The race winner was Kevin Harvick. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Chris Buescher, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Jamie McMurray, AJ Allmendinger and Joey Logano.
Counting last night’s first 48 laps, the race had nine cautions for 106 laps and there were 20 lead changes among eight drivers.
The next Sprint Cup race is Sunday, Aug. 28 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.
