Trevor Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew had a good night going at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday when an untimely caution flag put them nearly two laps down just after Bayne made his final pit stop in the NRA 500. Even so, Bayne and his Wood Brothers team used the wave-around rule to rejoin the lead lap and score an 18^th-place finish.

Bayne started the race in 22^nd position and immediately began to work his way forward. Halfway through the race, he was running in the top 15 and looking for more.

As the crew was preparing to make its final scheduled stop, Bayne noticed a fluctuation in the fuel pressure on his No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion so he came to pit road. The pit stop was flawless, but the caution flag flew before the rest of the leaders stopped, knocking Bayne and the Wood Brothers off the lead lap.

Crew chief Donnie Wingo elected to take the wave-around on the race’s final caution period and rejoin the lead lap, but doing so meant that Bayne would have to make the final green-flag run without the benefit of fresh tires or a chassis adjustment. Still he was able to bring the car home in 18th place.

“We had a good night, and it could have easily been much better,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “We were running with Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle when the caution caught us. They finished third and fourth, and we would have been right there with them.”

Wood said he was pleased with every aspect of his team’s performance.

“Trevor did a good job,” he said. “Donnie called a great race. The pit crew had a good night.

“Everybody did what they were supposed to do. That one caution flag, which couldn’t be helped, was our only problem.”

Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew return to the Sprint Cup Series on May 3-5 for the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.

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An early qualifying draw didn’t turn out as well for Trevor Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew as it did for some of the other teams at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday.

Drivers qualifying later in the session had the advantage of a cooler – and faster – track, but Bayne, who was the sixth driver to make his run against the clock, still will start 22^nd in Saturday night’s NRA 500.

“We went out so early, but that was way faster than anything we did in practice,” Bayne said. “It’s kind of at our disadvantage to go out that early, but I think we’ll be OK.”

Bayne’s qualifying speed of 192.754 miles per hour greatly exceeded his best lap in practice, at 188.278 mph, and that improvement was in spite of a less-than-perfect qualifying run.

“We were a little free right there in [Turns] Three and Four to be able to get back to the gas and a little bit tight in One and Two,” he said.

Team co-owner Eddie Wood said the qualifying effort didn’t tell the whole story from Friday. He was more interested in the speed the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion showed in the first practice session, when Bayne and the Wood Brothers crew focused on dialing in their chassis set-up for the race.

“Our times stayed good on the long runs,” he said. “I think we’ll be OK.”

The NRA 500 is set to get the green flag just after 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday with TV coverage on FOX.

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For a driver with just 36 career Sprint Cup starts, Trevor Bayne has a good bit of experience at Texas Motor Speedway, where he’s set to drive the Wood Brothers’ No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion in Saturday night’s NRA 500.

It was at Texas in the fall of 2010 that Bayne made his first career Cup start, driving the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion to a strong 17th-place finish and almost as importantly, impressing NASCAR officials enough that they approved him to run the Daytona 500 in 2011, a race he won.

Bayne also got his first Nationwide Series victory at Texas, in the fall of 2011 driving the No. 16 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing.

On the Cup side, Bayne has five career starts at Texas, more than any other track except Daytona, where he also has five, and that alone has his crew chief Donnie Wingo looking forward to getting back to the track this weekend for the Wood Brothers’ third race of 2013.

“Trevor’s experiences at Texas give him more confidence going in,” he said. “And with it being a night race, he seems to do better when the track has more grip.”

Wingo is taking two Ford Fusions to Texas – one to use in a special test session on Thursday and another one, the same Ford Fusion Bayne raced at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier this year, for the NRA 500.

“Even though the test Thursday will be with a different car it’ll help us get a baseline set-up for the race,” Wingo said. “And the schedule, with two practices on Friday, will allow us to use the first session to get a better handle on the race set-up.”

The veteran crew chief also likes what he sees on the weather map, as the forecast for Friday calls for sunny skies, which should allow qualifying to be held as scheduled, which almost always is a best-case scenario for a part-time team like the Wood Brothers that has to qualify on speed to make races.

“The last time we were at Texas we qualified seventh,” Wingo said.

Qualifying for the NRA 500 is set for Friday at 6:40 p.m. Eastern Time with TV coverage on SPEED. The race is set to get the green flag on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. with TV coverage on FOX.

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Trevor Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team left Las Vegas Motor Speedway pleased with their effort in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400, despite a somewhat disappointing 23rd-place finish.
Bayne and his No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion started the race in 36th place after rain washed out practice and qualifying on Friday and the field was set using last year’s car owner points standings.
While Bayne and the Motorcraft team were fortunate to even be in the starting field given their limited schedule, Sunday’s race turned out to be a bad one to be starting deep in the field.
Although Bayne was able to drive his way to 20th place by Lap 45, two long green-flag runs early in the race saw him and a host of other drivers fall a lap down. The first caution flag flew for debris on the track on Lap 61, and the second wasn’t displayed until Marcos Ambrose spun on Lap 161.
“From the start of the race our car was pretty good,” team co-owner Len Wood said. “We were running good lap times, but not good enough to stay on the lead lap on those long green-flag runs.”

With just five caution periods in the entire race, there were few opportunities to make up lost laps, but Bayne and crew chief Donnie Wingo were able to use pit strategy to put them in position for a lead-lap finish before a lug nut became wedged in the right-rear brake rotor during a pit stop. That led to a vibration and then a pit stop, which Wood figures cost Bayne some spots in the final run-down.
For Bayne and the Woods, continuing to run at speed with a vibration from a then-unknown source wasn’t worth the risk.
“It’s like Trevor said, we didn’t want to lose a race car,” Wood said, adding that he and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew were glad to get their 2013 season back on track after a disappointing Daytona 500.
“All in all, it was a positive run after not having much luck at Daytona,” he said. “Next up is Texas.” Bayne and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion will skip the next three Sprint Cup races and return on April 13 for the NRA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

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