Roush Fenway Racing’s Trevor Bayne finished seventh Saturday night in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) race from Atlanta Motor Speedway. The No. 6 Cargill/Sam’s Club team battled hard all night, starting third and racing in the top-five for most of the night.
“We’re getting the runs that we want now, almost,” said Bayne. “We’re working on these top-fives and top-threes, and I thought we had that tonight. We were running top-five a majority of the night. These guys did a great job with this Sam’s Club Mustang and Atlanta is one of my favorite tracks. It was really good to be here, but there at the end we just got bottled up on the restart. I had nowhere to go. The 22 and the 3 spun the tires in front of me and I had to wait until the start-finish to go to the top. I got black-flagged for that once this year and I did not want to make that mistake again. I waited until the line and went to the top and got a couple, but that just really bottled us up. The inside lane went and a few of them got by us that we were faster than all night, but we’ll keep working hard.”
Bayne qualified third for the 195-lap race and quickly moved up to second by lap 7. Bayne radioed to crew chief Mike Kelley that his Ford Mustang was tight through the middle and loose off. Even with the car not exactly where he wanted it, Bayne managed to turn the fastest laps on the track by lap 10.
When the caution came out on lap 36, Kelley called his driver down pit road for a track bar adjustment as well as four tires and two cans of fuel. The team completed the stop in blistering fashion and sent the driver back out.
By lap 58 Bayne radioed in the car was just too tight to gain any ground on the leaders, Kelley radioed back, “We will fix you up once the caution comes out, hang in there.”
Kelley got his chance on lap 89; Bayne was called down pit road for another wedge adjustment along with four tires and two cans of fuel. Bayne radioed in the adjustments seemed to help the tightness through center, but still had an issue with the car being loose on exit.
The team eventually made one last adjustment on lap185 after the No. 14 car got loose and hit the wall, sending most of the field into the pits for their final adjustments of the night. Kelley and Bayne both agreed they were heading in the right direction with the adjustments so another track bar adjustment was made along with four tires and one can of fuel.
On the restart Bayne was pinned in by the No 3 and No. 22 spinning their tires and was unable to move up from the bottom, shuffling him back to seventh, where the team eventually finished.
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