After starting in the sixth position in qualifying, Matt Tifft driver of the no.19 Tunity Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing was looking for a solid finish at the "Monster Mile." However, it would come with challenges in the early parts of the race.
In the late going of stage 1, Tifft experienced tire troubles forcing him to come down pit road and go one lap down. This meant Tifft missed out on playoff points in the first stage.
It would take several laps for Tifft to get back on the lead lap. His big break would come on a lap 91 caution, as he would receive the free pass to get back on the lead lap. Another break came on lap 111, where a caution allowed Tifft to pit.
As Stage 3 began, the top six cars stayed out including Tifft. Tifft was in the top five before falling back again. He eventually rebounded and finished in the ninth positing, giving him his third top 10 of the year.
"It was a solid day for us. We had to play a strategy card before the start of the third stage just because Daniel (Suarez) and I both had the right fronts go consecutive laps, so it was great to fight back from two laps down to get to that point, but I think those guys just had a little bit fresher tires there at the end which helped them a little bit, but we just got a little bit too tight on the longer run."
"Overall, it was a good day for Tunity Camry. We needed these days each and every weekend and hopefully we can just build from this and try to do the same thing every week, but it's good to have a day where we're running up front and competing up front and, yeah, things kind of played out to where we had to fight back, but it could have been a whole lot worse, so glad to have a good solid day."
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