Bayne records sixth-straight top-15 finish at Kentucky

Trevor Bayne, driver of the No.6 AdvoCare Ford Mustang earned his sixth-consecutive Kentucky Speedway finish inside the top 15 on Friday evening in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) event, coming home in the 15th position. The night wasn’t incident free however; as contact late caused Bayne suffer a flat a left-front tire on the final lap.

“We had a top-10 car tonight,” said Bayne after the race. “We were able to use some pit strategy to gain us the track position that we needed and were able to run up front and make some noise tonight. Unfortunately there at the end we made some contact with the No.9 car that wound up cutting our left-front tire on the last lap. So it’s disappointing to end up 15th with a top-10 car but even though that’s not what we we’re looking for, we’ll keep digging in and get our No.6 AdvoCare Ford Mustang faster and head to Daytona knowing that we have an awesome chance to get a win.”

Bayne began the 200-Lap event in the 13th position and consistently ran inside the top 15 throughout the evening. Battling a tight condition early, crew chief Chad Norris utilized a Lap 82 caution for debris to bring the driver of the No.6 AdvoCare Ford Mustang to pit road for four tires and a chassis adjustment that would help alleviate the tight handling condition. Returning to the track in 16th, Bayne used the ensuing restart to charge his way up to the 11th position just prior to the third caution of the night coming out on Lap 102.

While under caution, Bayne decided to bring the No.6 Ford back down pit road for a fuel only stop, as several of the race leaders remained on the race track. Restarting in the 14th position, Bayne steadily began to work his way towards the front, cracking the top-10 for the first time on Lap 141. Bayne continued to march forward as the race leaders began to peel off the track and onto pit road for green flag pit stops. By Lap 149, Bayne had raced his way up to the third position and would maintain his position inside the top three until a Lap 155 caution saw Bayne fall back to fifth after two of the race leaders decided to stay out on the race track while Bayne chose to pit for fresh tires.

Bayne would continue to fight for position inside the top 10 for the remainder of the evening, until contact with another car caused Bayne to make slight contact with the outside retaining wall with less than 10 laps remaining in the event. The damage halted the No.6 Ford’s momentum towards the front, and ultimately led to the left-front tire going flat coming to the checkered flag. In the end, Bayne came home with a 15th-place finish, his sixth-consecutive top-15 finish at the 1.5-mile oval.

With the result, Bayne remains sixth in the championship standings and trails NNS leader Elliott Sadler by 59 points

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