A trying first season with Furniture Row Racing appears to be getting better at the tail end for Martin Truex Jr.
One week after he finished seventh at Dover for his first Top-10 run since June, Truex turned in his best performance of 2014 with a fourth-place finish today at Kansas.
“Honestly, the guys have done a very nice job on the Furniture Row team bringing good race cars the last few weeks,” said Truex, who started 15th. “They have been working really hard to get this program turned around. It’s nice to get some good results. They really deserve it they have been working hard for it.
“Just hope we can keep these good runs going the rest of the year and hopefully be able to come out of the box next year strong. That is what we are planning on.”
Truex made early progress and moved into the Top 5 during the first half of the 267-lap event. He would hover around that part of the leaderboard for pretty much the remainder of the race before climbing back inside the Top 5 again following the final restart of the day with 28 laps left.
Several other non-Chase drivers also put up good runs at Kansas, too.
Richard Childress Racing got nice results from rookie Austin Dillon (eighth) and Paul Menard (ninth), ensuring that all three of their pilots cracked the Top 10 (their lone Chaser, Ryan Newman, finished sixth).
“We fought hard all day,” Menard said of his afternoon. “We didn’t quite have the speed our teammates did. We made some really good adjustments to get the car balanced out good.
“I’m pretty happy with a top 10 after struggling most of the race. We hit on a couple of things throughout the race that got us better.”
An honorable mention also goes to A.J. Allmendinger, who was eliminated from the Chase in the Challenger Round. He finished 11th for his best run since his inaugural Cup victory in August at Watkins Glen.
“This is the best weekend we have had in a long time for sure,” said ‘Dinger. “Happy with the car throughout the whole race – we are just lacking a little bit of overall speed.”
