BROOKLYN, Mich. – When the rain finally came at Michigan International Speedway Sunday afternoon, Martin Truex Jr. found himself a distant 18th in the finishing order in the rain-shortened FireKeepers Casino 400, a far cry from his sixth and second place finishes at the 2.0-mile oval last year.
Truth be told though, Truex struggled to find the grip he needed to power his way to the front. Not even the magic of crew chief Cole Pearn could compensate as Truex finished Stage 1 in 11th.
Stage 2 wasn’t better as the reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion noted his No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota as “awful” and “plowing” – two uncharacteristic words echoed from Truex let alone the Furniture Row Racing team over the past two seasons.
At the end of Stage 2, Truex’s “pushing sideways” Toyota dropped him to 18th in the rundown and with approaching weather on the horizon, it left little time for the Denver, Co.-based team to recover.
“We never could get to where we needed to be,” said Truex. “The steering was wacky, the car was bouncing, just not a good day. You’re going to have a race like this over a 36-race schedule. We’ll look at everything to see where we went wrong and then enjoy the weekend off for Father’s Day before heading to Sonoma for the road race in two weeks.”
Restarting Stage 3 at Lap 126, Truex’s progress was interrupted by a spinning Ricky Stenhouse Jr., at Lap 129. The race never restarted though – as a heavy mist began to fall and the race called shortly thereafter with Truex finishing 18th for his worst performance since a 26th place effort at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in April.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
