It was a day of contrasts in the Daytona 500 for the Furniture Row Racing team, with one team seeing its day end early and the other seeing a chance for victory disappear with little more than one lap remaining.
The stars aligned once again for Martin Truex Jr. and Furniture Row Racing’s No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota Camry team to challenge for victory in the closing laps of the Daytona 500 but he was shuffled out of line and then ran out of fuel on the final lap of the season-opening event of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Truex, driving a car with a taped up right-front fender damaged earlier in the race, took the lead with two laps remaining in the 200-lap Great American Race but was shuffled out of line coming to the white flag. He then called over the radio that the car had run out of fuel on the back straight and crossed the finish line with a 13th-place finish. Truex and the No. 78 team finished second in last year’s Daytona 500 by one-hundredth of a second, the closest margin of victory in Daytona 500 history
“It was a roller coaster of a Daytona 500,” said Truex. “Our position might have appeared to be bleak early in the race but we kept fighting to the end with a damaged race car that was a handful to drive. Our No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota took the lead with two laps to go but I got passed and then, to make matters worse, I ran out of fuel on the final lap and finished 13th. We put ourselves in position to have a shot at winning the race, came close but didn’t get it done.”
Erik Jones, competing in his first Daytona 500, was caught in a multiple car accident on lap 103 and the damage sustained to the No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry forced the Furniture Row Racing team to retire. He was credited with a 38th-place finish.
“It’s hard to say (what happened) without talking to Kyle (Busch),” said Jones. “I don’t know if he cut a tire or had an issue but obviously got turned around there in [turn] three and I just got in the side of him. There was nowhere for me to really go and we just all kind of got caught up. I learned a lot. It’s just nice settling in with everybody on the team, my spotter Rick Carelli, working more with Chris (Gayle, crew chief) and into the role with these cars.”
Kurt Busch won the crash-marred Daytona 500. The rest of the top 10 finishers were Ryan Blaney, AJ Allmendinger, Aric Almirola, Paul Menard, Joey Logano, Kasey Kahne, Michael Waltrip, Matt DiBenedetto, and Trevor Bayne.
The second race of the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season is the March 5 (next Sunday) Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500 at Altanta Motor Speedway.