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HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Martin Truex Jr. and his Furniture Row Racing bunch didn't mind the perception as the clear underdogs among the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship contenders. It didn't mean they were content just to be among the elite final four.
Despite his team trying alternate strategies and working to find finesse on a finicky track, Truex's bid for his first premier-series crown fell short Sunday with a 12th-place finish in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, leaving him fourth in the final Sprint Cup standings.
"The odds were against us, for sure," said Truex, who led just three of the 267 laps. "You know, obviously really proud of everybody, like I said, and you know, we didn't come here saying we were going to be OK finishing fourth. We came here and really tried everything in our power, everything we knew how to do, to put together our best performance. It just wasn't in the cards for us."
Truex's best season in NASCAR's top division came to an unsatisfying end, fraught with handling woes as the race transferred from daytime to nightfall. "This is frustrating, man. We're terrible," Truex told crew chief Cole Pearn after the No. 78 Chevrolet failed to break back into the top 10 after the team's next-to-last pit stop.
It was the theme of the night for several teams battling their car's temperament, but few had as much at stake as the Colorado-based single-car team.
"For whatever reason, we just didn't have a good handle on it from the time we started race practice yesterday," Pearn said. "I don't know. Something about this car or what for this track, I don't know. Mile-and-a-halfs have definitely been our strong suit and for whatever reason, we could not move the needle all weekend.
"The race was what it was. We tried to make the best of it and threw everything we could at it, but it just wasn't our weekend by any means."
An omen might've come during a Lap 137 pit stop, when a fluke spark from a lug nut on the left-rear tire change triggered a flash fire, keeping the fueler from filling the tank. The team recovered, thanks to a quick yellow flag that followed, but the handling issues persisted.
WATCH: Truex's car catches on fire during pit stop
With the team struggling to gain ground, Pearn gambled on a two-tire stop during the next-to-last yellow flag when the rest of the title contenders took four. The call for track position vaulted the No. 78 to the lead on Lap 169, but the strategy backfired as Truex dropped through the running order on the ensuing long green-flag stretch.
"We were just trying -- we had to try something," Truex said. "We weren't getting anywhere. We made just about every adjustment we could possibly make on our race car and never really seemed like we could find that speed, so we were just taking some gambles. We did two early and it worked out for us pretty well. We did two later on and the race went green longer than we had hoped and we probably lost two spots because of it.
"But I think all in all at the end of the day, net‑net, we kind of ended up where we should have. We just didn't have the speed, so we were trying to gamble on some things and trying to get some track position any way we could, just couldn't hang onto it."
Despite any possible letdown in the finale, the team celebrated plenty of firsts. Truex and Furniture Row each savored their highest season-long finish in NASCAR's premier series, with Truex setting career-bests in top-five finishes, top-10 finishes and laps led -- all under the guidance of a rookie crew chief.
"I'm extremely proud," Pearn said. "I mean, we won a race, had 22 top 10s, we finished fourth in points. If you'd told me that at the start of the year, I would've been very, very, very pleased. The good thing is, I'm really excited about our future. We're heading into a really good place with some good partners down the road and put this team in a spot that they've never been in before. Tremendous amount of things to be pleased for and really looking forward to the future."
The future for the Barney Visser-owned team may keep the upward trend going. The team will likely return all key personnel and will shift from longtime manufacturer Chevrolet to Toyota in the offseason, aligning itself with Joe Gibbs Racing, this year's title-winning organization with driver Kyle Busch.
Momentum from this season may also help as the team tries to do one better in 2016.
RELATED: Furniture Row's Toyota move among several changes in Cup for '16
"I think this is great motivation for us for next year," Truex said. "I think that with the things we have coming and going to Toyota and teaming up with JGR and all that stuff, I think the future is bright for this team, and we're keeping all our guys together, and hopefully this is our first season battling for a championship but not our last. I really feel strong that this is a special group of guys, and if we can keep that together for hopefully the rest of my career, I'd love to drive for them.
"We'll just have to wait and see what happens. You never know what the future holds, but excited already about next year, and I think we'll be back here in mid‑December testing already for next year. Not a whole lot of rest, and (I'm) looking forward to spending a week or so down here relaxing and having a few beers, catching a few fish and really just let it all soak in what we've been able to accomplish, and really proud of everybody on our team."