Tire failure puts Martin Truex Jr. in wall, backup car for Sunday - MotorSportsTalk

Martin Truex Jr. and Furniture Row Racing were forced to go to their backup No. 78 Chevrolet for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 after a tire failure sent the primary car into the wall during this morning’s first Sprint Cup practice at Auto Club Speedway.

“I was still wide-open turning down into the corner [Turn 1] and the left rear came apart – shredded,” Truex told Fox Sports before this afternoon’s Cup final practice. “No warning at all, but the first tire we ran a 12-lap run right off the start of practice and we saw a sign of an issue with the sidewall on that tire, so we put some air in it.

“Goodyear always says you can put some air in it and we went up on air pressure and went out. I think it was on the eighth lap, it came apart. My plan was to not run more than 10 because on 12 the first run, it came apart and I was thinking 10 would be safe because we put air in it. And, we come to find out, it wasn’t.

“I’m not sure what the options are now. We’re gonna put more air in it and try again. There’s nothing else we can do.”

Truex had qualified 12th yesterday for Sunday’s main event in his primary car. The practice incident is the latest in a string of bad luck moments that has marred his first season so far with Furniture Row.

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Chase Sexton announced on Instagram he will sit out this weekend’s Pro Motocross race at Hangtown in Rancho Cordova, California after a practice crash on Tuesday left him with a concussion.

Sexton’s crash on Tuesday happened during a test session at Fox Raceway.

“Bummed to make this post but I’ll be sitting out this weekend,” Sexton said. “As you guys saw I had a big one during qualifying at Pala, then another one on Tuesday this week that banged me up pretty good. Nothing broken just need a few days to get back to 100%.”

Despite his crash in the first qualification session in Pala, California, Sexton mounted up for both motos and finished second in each race behind his teammate Jett Lawrence, who was making his Motocross debut and won with a pair of first-place finishes. Sexton padded his SuperMotocross points’ lead over the injured Eli Tomac, who is still second in the combined Supercross and Motocross standings despite missing the SX finale at Salt Lake City and the outdoor opener with a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Sexton has an advantage of 78 points over Cooper Webb and cannot give up his SMX lead by missing this round.

At stake, however, is the risk of losing ground to Lawrence in the Pro Motocross championship. Sexton currently trails his teammate by six points and is liable to lose significant ground this weekend.

In addition to his concussion, Sexton has also been diagnosed with mononucleosis and the combination of the two conditions caused the team to make the difficult decision to keep him out of the lineup at Hangtown.

“I’m super-bummed to miss this weekend’s race,” Sexton said in a press release. “I feel like I rode well at Pala, and I was really looking forward to Hangtown because it’s a good track for me. Unfortunately, I was already pretty banged up from my qualifying crash on Saturday, and now with mono and Tuesday’s concussion on top of it, I want to do the right thing and hopefully be back on the track soon.”

A return date for Sexton has not yet been announced.

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