Result jumps Truex to 5th in points, highest-ever standing position for Furniture Row Racing driver
HAMPTON, Ga. (March 1, 2015) — Martin Truex Jr. notched his second consecutive top-10 finish, placing sixth in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The result followed an eighth-place finish in last week’s season-opening Daytona 500.
Truex moved into fifth place in driver points, the highest standing position for a Furniture Row Racing driver in the team’s 10-year history.
Outside of a few minor hiccups during the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, Truex, driving the No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet, ran a smooth and calculated race during the 325 laps at the 1.54-mile oval. His alert driving skill came into play when he twice avoided being clipped in a major multicar accident on Lap 259.
“It’s a game of inches and sometimes it goes in your favor and sometimes not,” said Truex. “Today it went our way when that crash happened. We had a really good car on the long runs and on every restart it just seemed like we kept getting in the wrong lane. We had guys wrecking in front of us and getting loose in front of us and spinning their tires. We had to pass a lot of cars all day. It seemed like it was the same guys all day long.”
Truex added, “It was another good weekend. I just really wanted a top-five. I wasn’t really quite as good as those guys on the short run. And in dirty air I needed a little bit longer runs to be able to kind of pick and choose my lanes where I needed to be. All in all what can I say? All the guys at Furniture Row Racing are doing a great job. This beats where we were last year at this time by about 30 spots. Excited about what everybody is doing and really pumped to get the rest of the year going.”
After the first two races of 2014 — his first season with Furniture Row Racing — Truex had finishes of 43rd and 22nd. and was 35th in points.
“We have a good group of guys working really hard,” stated Truex. “We had a good plan going into the off-season of knowing what we had to do to turn the program around. Hats off to Cole Pearn (crew chief) and Joe Garone (general manager) and everybody that’s been pushing all the buttons and making the right decisions over the winter. It’s fun to drive race cars that are fast and running good again. Hopefully we can continue to build on the momentum, build on this team and keep getting better. Our over-the-wall crew also had another good day. A great team effort.”
The race winner was Jimmie Johnson. Rounding our the top-10 in order were: Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth, Truex, AJ Allmendinger, Brad Moffit, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman.
The race featured 10 cautions for 54 laps and one red flag for nine minutes. There were 28 lead changes among 12 drivers.
The next Sprint Cup Series race is Sunday, March 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
