“Honestly, Friday night was a race we won’t understand until we can tear the truck down back at the race shop. On paper, the Copart Tundra was great. Todd told us he thought he left a little on the table in qualifying, so we felt confident that our starting spot was because of that and not because anything was wrong with the truck. The Copart Tundra behaved the same as it did throughout the practice sessions, so we felt we knew to expect from it in racing conditions,” explained crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. “For a lot of other race teams, starting tenth and finishing twelfth wouldn’t necessarily be a bad night. For this Germain Racing team, watching the Copart Tundra struggle outside the top-ten at a track where our worst performance in the last four seasons was a sixth-place finish, the night was very disappointing.”

The tenth-place qualifying effort turned in by Bodine bested his fastest practice lap by almost two-tenths of a second, whereas pole winner Johnny Sauter lost a tenth in qualifying from his best practice time. Hillman, Bodine and the crew felt the No. 30 Tundra would be seen in its usual position at Phoenix International Raceway – racing around in the top-five and top ten.

“Before the green flag waved at Phoenix, you couldn’t have convinced me our night would go the way it did. But, it did. The Copart Tundra became extremely inconsistent once the race started. The truck acted like something might have failed on the chassis. The Germain Racing pit crew did an awesome job on pit road making a lot of adjustments. We couldn’t solve the problem, but we were almost able to get the Copart Tundra back into the top ten. We’ll tear the truck down on Monday and see if there’s anything we can figure out before we head down to Homestead,” said Hillman Jr.