It was a perplexing Saturday evening for Martin Truex Jr. at Bristol Motor Speedway. The Furniture Row Racing driver said his car had a mind of its own as he struggled during the second half of the Irwin Tools Night Race to post a 20th-place result in the Sprint Cup Series event.
Truex’s No. 78 Chevrolet, with the World Vision paint scheme, showed promise at different times of the race, running in the top-10 and as high as fifth. But as the race started to take shape on the half-mile concrete oval, the No. 78 Chevy dropped back in the field.
“I couldn’t predict what the car was going to do,” said Truex. “It was very inconsistent. The car was tight then it was loose and it plowed through the corners. We had a couple of good runs, but couldn’t maintain the performance.”
Truex started the 500-lap race from the 23rd position and picked up a few spots in the early going. His best stretch came near the midway mark of the race where he restarted fifth following a caution on lap 195. When the next caution came out on Lap 264 he was positioned in 11th place.
“It never came together to maintain a top-10 position,” noted Truex, who moved from 26th to 25th in the point standings. “The good news tonight was that we avoided a number of wrecks out there. We came close a couple of times, but didn’t get collected this time around. We’ll see what we can do in Atlanta next week, it ranks right up there as one of my favorite tracks.”
The race winner was Joey Logano. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard and Greg Biffle.
There were 16 lead changes among nine drivers and nine cautions for 64 laps.
FRR PR
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