In a long race that featured a rain delay and a swing of adjustments, Trevor Bayne brought his No. 6 AdvoCare Ford home in the 19th position in Sunday afternoon’s race at the “Monster Mile.”
“We just didn’t have any grip when the track rubbered up,” Bayne said. “Every time the track cleaned up for a few laps we would be OK, but the more rubber got down the worse our performance was. We just couldn’t get the car to turn in the middle like we needed it to and every time we tried to make it turn better we just took the back end out and got it too loose in and never fixed the center. I fought being on the splitter early in the run all race long and that hurt us, so we finished 19th. That’s not the day we wanted for sure, but we also gave it everything we had.”
The Knoxville, Tennessee, native rolled off the grid 22nd at the one-mile track and stayed around there through the first set of pit stops. Fuel strategy would come into play early as Bayne and the majority of the field needed to stretch it to make it through the first stage.
The 2011 Daytona 500 Champion saved just enough to finish 17th in the opening stage, before getting up to 14th just a few laps later. A long green flag run saw Bayne go a lap down at lap 223, where he’d finish 18th to end stage two 240 laps in.
When the caution flew at lap 271 for the No. 18, Bayne hit a large piece of debris resulting in some nose and splitter damage. However, the No. 6 team would have to wait to assess the damage until the caution flag waved for rain in the area eventually bringing out the red flag to allow time to dry the track.
After going back green, Bayne continued to battle an ill-handling machine forcing him to settle with a 19th-place finish.
The No. 6 team travels to Kansas Speedway next weekend, a track that Roush Fenway Racing has scored four Cup victories at. Race coverage begins Saturday, May 12, at 8 p.m. ET on FS1.
RFR PR/Photo Robert Laberge/Getty Images
