With 15 laps remaining in Sunday’s rain-delayed Advance Auto Parts Clash, Martin Truex Jr. got clipped and slammed into the outside wall, ending his day at NASCAR’s non-points race with a 15th-place finish at Daytona International Speedway.
Driving the No. 78 5-hour ENERGY Camry for Furniture Row Racing, Truex was looking to make a move on Lap 60 of 75 but the decision resulted in getting tangled with the No. 42 car of Kyle Larson.
A classy Truex in post-race interviews did not point fingers for the cause of the accident, he took the blame 100 percent.
“I had trouble with my rear-view mirror and I cut in front of Larson and basically spun myself out,” explained Truex. “It was my fault and we’ll get that (rear-view) mirror problem fixed for next week’s races.”
Truex’s 5-hour ENERGY Toyota ran as high as third after starting fifth.
The race winner was Joey Logano. Rounding out the top-10 were: Kyle Busch, Alex Bowman, Danica Patrick, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Chase Smith, Daniel Suarez, Chris Buescher and Jamie McMurray.
The race had six lead changes among four drivers and there were four cautions for 16 laps.
The points portion of the 2017 NASCAR season begins on Sunday with the 59th running of The Great American Race, the Daytona 500. In 2016, Truex finished 0.01 seconds behind race winner Denny Hamlin – the closest finish in race history.