Another Fast Race Car Takes Another
Major Hit for Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (July 6, 2015) — The past two races haven’t gone well for Martin Truex Jr. and it wasn’t anything to do with the performance of his No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet.
In Sunday’s scheduld Sprint Cup Series race that turned into Monday morning at Daytona International Speedway, Truex had another fast race car, but as was the case last week in Sonoma, Calif, luck wasn’t on his side. He got collected in an 11-car melee on Daytona’s 2.5-mile oval, ending his day on Lap 105 of 160 with a 38th-place finish and major damage to his car.
“The weekend didn’t start off well for us and it ended worse,” said Truex, who was forced to his backup car after being collected in a practice wreck on Friday. “The backup car turned out to be really fast as we ran up front for a good portion of the race. But when we got shuffled back we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Rain held up the start of the Coke Zero 400 for approximately four hours and it wasn’t until 11:47 p.m. ET when the green flag waved. The race ended on Monday at 2:45 a.m. with a harrowing final-lap crash.
Truex, who started 19th, ran as high as second for a number of laps, and when his car got body slammed in the Lap 105 accident he was positioned in 15th place and moving to the front.
“We had a solid top-10 or top-five car,” said Truex. “We didn’t quite have the speed of a few of those other guys, but we had a great handling race car. On the longer runs we could really make some moves.”
When asked about the wreck, Truex said, “It looked like the No. 5 (Kasey Kahne) and the No. 20 (Matt Kenseth) got together somehow. Just another situation where we were kind of running outside there minding our own business and just like practice, we got caught up in somebody else’s wreck.”
Truex dropped from second to fifth in the driver point standings.
The race winner was Dale Earnhardt Jr. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman, Trevor Bayne and Clint Bowyer.
There were 22 lead changes among 12 drivers and nine cautions for 43 laps.
The next Sprint Cup Series race is Saturday night (July 11) at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta.
