With only 43 teams entered in Saturday’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, Trevor Bayne and the crew of his No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion enjoyed a luxury not often afforded to a part-time Sprint Cup team.
Since there are 43 starting spots, there was no danger of missing the race. Bayne and his Motorcraft/Quick Lane team were able to spend the majority of the two practice sessions perfecting the race set-up for their No. 21 Ford Fusion. Most weeks, a good portion of practice is devoted to qualifying set-ups since the team usually has to make the starting field based on their qualifying time.
Nonetheless, Bayne ran a lap at 192.583 miles per hour to earn a respectable 20th starting position.
Like the rest of the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew, he was more concerned about how his Ford Fusion will perform in the race than how it ran by itself against the clock.
“Hopefully our car is good in the pack,” he said. “You can’t really tell from qualifying with gusts and things like that.”
“Being an impound race, obviously that takes away a little bit of the things you would do if you were just qualifying, but I’m always proud of this team at superspeedway races, and hopefully we’ll be able to work our way up and be at the front by the end of this thing.”
The Coke Zero 400 race is scheduled to start just after 7:30 p.m. on Saturday with TV coverage on TNT.
