MARTINSVILLE, Va. (Oct. 26, 2014) – Martin Truex Jr. kept coming back from tire rubs and hits to his race car Sunday at the Martinsville short rack. But Truex’s flat-black No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet found itself in a non-survivable situation when it got collected with major damage during a multicar wreck on Lap 437 of 500.
Truex, who ran as low as 36th and as high as eighth, was one of five drivers involved in the frontstretch melee that brought out the red flag at Martinsville Speedway.
Truex drove his crippled car to the garage where it was quickly determined that the damage was too severe to re-enter the race. He was credited with a 38th-place finish in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 Sprint Cup Series event.
At the time of the accident Truex was running in 22nd place and appeared to be ready for a late-race charge on the tricky .526-mile oval.
“We fought hard, but there were too many obstacles to overcome,” said Truex. “We were up and down all day – had some good runs and also some bad runs. Regarding the accident, there was a lot of smoke and plenty of cars spinning. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Looking back at the 500-lap scheduled race, an early incident was a harbinger of things to come for Truex and the single-car Furniture Row Racing team. Before the race was two-laps old, Truex’s car was spewing smoke. The culprit was damage to the left-front fender that caused a tire rub. The fender issue forced Truex to make an unscheduled pit stop during a caution on Lap 3, which sent him to the rear of the field in 36th place.
“We had another tire rub later in the race and took a number of hits today,” stated Truex, who is 24th in driver points with three race remaining. “It was your typical short track racing.”
The race winner was Dale Earnhardt Jr. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, AJ Allmendinger and David Ragan.
There were 19 lead changes among 10 drivers and 11 cautions for 73 laps.
The next Sprint Cup Series race is Sunday Nov. 2 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
