Martin Truex Jr. exited the Big Machine Vodka 400 at The Brickyard on Lap 41 after the left-front brake rotor exploded on his No. 78 Toyota.
Truex, who reported issues with the brakes at the start of the race, was going down the frontstretch into Turn 1 when the rotor broke.
“I thought I blew a tire initially and I was like ‘oh this is going to hurt’, but the car kept turning luckily and I was able to keep it off the wall,” said Truex Jr., who had to start at the rear of the field after his car failed inspection multiple times. “It’s unfortunate. The Auto-Owners Toyota was really fast. As hard as it is to pass here, we were getting there making our way to the front. I felt like any time we had clean air, we had really good speed. Wish we could have raced all day and seen what we could have done with them, but hopefully we’ll get this bad luck out of the way before the playoffs start next week.”
The last-place finish was his second of 30th or worse in the last three races in 2018 and it came in the week that the team announced it will cease operations at the end of the season.
“We got a great bunch of guys here,” Truex Jr. said. “A great bunch of hard core racers. Nobody is going to put their heads down and give up, I can promise you that. We’re going to come out swinging in Vegas.”
