TALLADEGA, Ala. (May 4, 2014) — Martin Truex Jr. was running in the top-10 during the closing laps in Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.
But when the caution came out with two laps remaining, the Furniture Row Racing driver, who was positioned in eighth place, found himself in the wrong spot when the race was restarted and proceeded to drift backwards to a 17th-place finish.
“We were solidly running in the top-10 but got into the wrong place on the (final) restart,” explained Truex. “We managed to get a good start but the guy behind me didn’t and it just pulled me back. When there’s no one behind you it’s difficult to get going.
“I tried to stay on the No.18’s bumper (Kyle Busch) and got going with him but as I got up through the gears I started to fall off. That screwed us up and put us on the outside lane three wide. For some reason our car wouldn’t work on the outside all day — we had to run the middle and the bottom.”
Though the finish was disappointing for the single car, Denver-based team, Truex felt good about the overall performance.
“Except for those last two laps it was a good day,” said Truex, who ran as high as fifth in the 188-lap race.”We raced hard but never could get all the way to the front. Our performance was definitely better than our finish.”
Truex gained one position — from 27th to 26th — in the driver point standings.
The race winner was Denny Hamlin. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, AJ Allmendinger, Paul Menard, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
The race had 48 lead changes among 23 drivers and there were eight cautions for 31 laps.
The next Sprint Cup Series race is Saturday night (May 10) at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan.
