Strong performance a boost for Truex, team

"Well, it feels good and bad," Truex said. "To lead all those laps and come home second, it stings a little bit, but honestly after the year and a half I've had -- on and off the race track -- that was a lot of fun. This team really needed that; I really needed that. This is the most fun I've had in a race car in a long, long time."
 
Truex kicked off his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season with Furniture Row Racing on an up note, bearing a sharp contrast to the No. 78 Chevrolet team's mighty struggles in 2014. In addition to his laps led tally being singular -- Truex led Lap 163 at Talladega Superspeedway last October -- instead of plural, he also netted just one top-five finish, a fourth place at Kansas Speedway in the fall.
 
The off-track hardships Truex referenced were shouldered by his longtime girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last August. Pollex was in Daytona for Saturday night's exhibition, and Truex gave her and the fans braving the chilly temperatures a show.
 
Truex lined up 10th after a random draw for starting position, but took the point for the first time by Lap 11. His car was one of the few in the 25-car field able to carve through traffic and change lanes with relative aplomb -- experience, he said, that should carry over as the rest of Speedweeks head toward its pinnacle, the Feb. 22 Daytona 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX).
 
Truex's primary Daytona 500 car encountered a small setback during Saturday's early practices when the No. 78 crew discovered a crack in the oil pan. The team did not have to change engines, keeping the driver's confidence up.
 
"I learned a lot tonight that's going to help us throughout the week, mostly next Sunday for the race," said Truex, who started second in the 500 last season. "Obviously we learned a lot about our race car. We learned that it is fast. It's got speed. But honestly it's been a long time really, a couple years, since I had a car that I could make moves like that with, you know, make moves to take the lead, hold guys off for the lead, be able to run at the front all night long. So I learned a lot."
 
But the learning experience wasn't limited to Truex's feel behind the wheel. The exhibition also gave the driver a test run in communicating with new crew chief Cole Pearn, making his debut atop the pit box.
 
"That's kind of what we wanted to do," Pearn said, "going back to being able to run this race, is just trying to figure out what you have to do as far as what position you need to be in to get a good result and how the car's going to handle. … I think from that, it was a good test and honestly, pretty pleased with the results, so I think we can use this information to roll forward the rest of the week."

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