Feb. 20, 2010
Fontana, Cali. - Trevor Bayne's strong performance in Saturday's Stater Bros. 300 at Auto Club Speedway resulted in a 11th-place effort and moved the Aaron's Racing team into 24th in the NASCAR Nationwide Series point standings. Bayne, who celebrated his 19th birthday on Friday, qualified the No. 99 Diamond-Waltrip Racing machine in the 10th spot for Saturday afternoon's event. He fought a tight-handling race car early in the race but was able to stay in the top 15 for all 152 laps of the event. A late caution, with five laps remaining, forced the race into over time and Bayne wrestled with his competitors to keep the No. 99 machine in the top 10. However, the No. 12 of Justin Allgaier beat him to the line and the Knoxville, Tenn., native crossed the finish line 11th.
"At the beginning of the race we were a little bit tight so we made some good adjustments," said Bayne. "We never got the front end turning any better but we just unhooked the rear where I could get it set in a little bit better. That was a good change. We found the high line late after following Brendan Gaughan and Carl Edwards and a couple people that really ran the top well. That rocketed us towards the front. The middle of the race we got on the top and ran down people in front of us by four-tenths of a lap. That was what set us apart in that center section of the race because we could make some moves to get up towards the front. That put us in position to get good pit stops and everything that followed. Very last stop, we were one of the first teams to pit for four tires and I thought we'd be digging to the front and I got trapped in the middle. The 88 (Kelly Bires) barely got his nose outside of us coming to the green flag and that just trapped us in the middle and we had to fight back. We got through turn two and had a big run but they got the high line and got back around us."
Bayne went on to explain how anytime you finish with your car in one piece is a good finish. "We'll take an 11th-place finish, especially after coming out of Daytona. Our Aaron's Dream Machine is pretty in the garage, no marks on it so that's a good thing. We can make our cars better because they're not on a wrecker. We'll come back next week and try to do even better."
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