{"id":16234,"date":"2018-04-08T19:10:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T00:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=16234"},"modified":"2018-04-08T19:30:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T00:30:27","slug":"nascar-sunday-texas-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/08\/nascar-sunday-texas-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Sunday Texas Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Erik Jones\u2019 first top five of the season is a sure sign of progress<\/b><\/p>\n

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 A fourth-place finish for Erik Jones<\/strong> in Sunday\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway<\/a> didn\u2019t have the impact of a breakthrough victory, but it marked substantial progress nevertheless for the second-year Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> driver.<\/p>\n

Jones led twice for a total of 64 laps and posted his best finish since joining Joe Gibbs racing at the start of the season. More than anything, Sunday\u2019s result gave him a jolt of confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been kind of inching there each week, getting closer and closer,\u201d Jones said. Martinsville (where he finished 17th two weeks ago) is kind of its own animal, but each week at the 1.5-mile and two-miles, we\u2019ve been getting better. To get the Reser\u2019s Camry up front and just in the top five is a big moment for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve been wanting to do here with this group, and we did a good job of it this weekend. Texas is a place I like. I\u2019ve got to say thanks to the pit crew. They worked really hard. We\u2019ve had a rough start to the year on pit road, but they knocked them out. We picked up a lot of spots on pit road today, and that was huge for us. Just a good day overall and a lot to build on for Bristol.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Jones gained three spots each on two consecutive pit stops, the second of which handed him the lead for a restart on Lap 178.<\/p>\n

That Jones would excel at Texas, however, is no surprise. In 2015, as a 19-year-old, he claimed his first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory at the 1.5-mile track and went on to win twice more there in the series.<\/p>\n

MARTIN TRUEX JR.\u2019S TOP-FIVE STREAK ENDS IN HARD CRASH<\/b><\/p>\n

All good things must come to an end \u2013 just ask Martin Truex Jr.<\/p>\n

Truex was running second in Sunday\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, albeit 12 seconds behind then-leader Kevin Harvick \u2013 when his right front tire blew and sent the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota rocketing into the outside wall in Turn 4.<\/p>\n

The violent wreck on Lap 80, just five laps short of the end of the first stage, knocked Truex out of the race in 37th place. That ended an enviable streak of 10 straight top-five finishes on Truex\u2019s bread-and-butter tracks, the 1.5-mile intermediate speedways.<\/p>\n

Truex had experienced no tire issues before the sudden flat.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust blew a right-front tire out of nowhere,\u201d Truex said. \u201cNot sure what happened there \u2013 if we ran something over or what. I think the first set of tires that came off the car looked great. We were just making our way towards the front. Would\u2019ve been nice to have at least finished that first stage before it happened, but that\u2019s just the way it goes sometimes\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all, we were going to be in for a good day. We were making the car better and still had room to go. We were as fast as anybody. At least that\u2019s a positive, and we\u2019ll go on to next week (at Bristol) and see what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Truex\u2019s streak of top fives at intermediate tracks dated to the first Kansas race of 2017. Six of his top fives were victories, and over those 10 races, he posted an average finish of 2.0.<\/p>\n

JIMMIE JOHNSON FINDS ENCOURAGEMENT IN CALAMITY AT TEXAS<\/b><\/p>\n

Leave it to Jimmie Johnson to find the silver lining in a disastrous day on  the race track.<\/p>\n

After a promising start from ninth on the grid in the O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Johnson\u2019s fortunes headed south in a hurry. First there was a loose wheel that required an unscheduled pit stop, result in a lost lap.<\/p>\n

The coup de grace came after restart on Lap 178, when Denny Hamlin\u2019s Toyota broke loose underneath Aric Almirola\u2019s Ford and ignited a seven-car wreck that knocked Johnson out of the race in 35th place and down to 21st in the series standings.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Johnson was happy just to be able to run in the top 10 \u2013 while it lasted.<\/p>\n

\u201cA strong Friday, a fantastic Saturday (when he led final practice) and then not the best Sunday,\u201d Johnson said philosophically. \u201cWe had a lot of different things work against us today, but we\u2019re getting closer each and every week, and I\u2019m really proud of everybody at Hendrick Motorsports.  We will get back to our winning ways soon\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we had plenty of speed, but just a lot of things worked against us. We just need a good clean weekend, and we\u2019ll go to Bristol next week and see if we can do it there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Erik Jones\u2019 first top five of the season is a sure sign of progress FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 A fourth-place finish for Erik Jones in Sunday\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway didn\u2019t have the impact of a breakthrough victory, but it marked substantial progress nevertheless for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,413,21],"class_list":["post-16234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-oreilly-auto-parts-500","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/MENCS_TMS_PitStop_040818-e1523232996745.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4dQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16236,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16234\/revisions\/16236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}