*Championship Update*

Having gone into Martinsville Speedway as the points leader, Ty Dillon suffered his worst career finish of 28th after a blown right front tire caused significant damage to his No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet. As a result, James Buescher has taken a pretty substantial 21 marker advantage heading into the type of track Turner Motorsports has accelerated at for much of the year–intermediate. Early season leader Timothy Peters find himself just 25 points behind in what is likely now just a three horse race.

I had a stomach sickness two or three days prior to the race at Las Vegas, and I thought I’d get better but I didn’t. Before the race I went to the infield care center and had an IV. That made me feel a little better. As far as the race itself, I was glad it was at night–it wasn’t as hot as last year. We had a good truck. During the only practice, we made a mistake so we ended up putting it back to the exact same setup that we had when we unloaded. When we went to qualify, I qualified seventh and I was really happy with the qualifying effort. Once the race started, I was average to snug, but on the long runs I was getting better. Then I was a little free because the track was changing and the temperature was changing. At the end, the guys did awesome on pit stops–I think the best pit stops we’ve had all year long. We gained spots every time, and on the last pit stop, we came in tenth and went out fifth.