Marc Mitchell and the Ergon race team were left singing the blues after the O’Reilly Auto Parts 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park.  The No. 15 Toyota Tundra was involved in two separate accidents at the rough and tumble .75-mile oval, with the final incident eliminating him from the event.  Despite having a competitive truck for the majority of the night, Mitchell finished the race in 31st place.

Mitchell qualified in the 25th position.  When the green flag dropped, he quickly advanced into the top-20 and set his sights on the top-10.  Unfortunately, while pedaling to the front of the pack, the No. 22 truck drove into the left-front of the Ergon Tundra and pressed the fender against the tire.  Mitchell’s Goodyear Wrangler blew and he had to make an unscheduled pit stop under green flag conditions to change the tires.  The incident left him in 33rd place, two laps down to the leaders.

Although Mitchell remained two laps down for the rest of the race, the Tallahassee, Fla. native was able to run comparable lap times to the leaders.  Mitchell picked up five positions, and was poised to finish in 26th place.

With three laps remaining in the race, the No. 59 truck spun in front of Mitchell.  As Mitchell checked up to avoid the accident, the No. 21 truck ran into the back of him and pushed him into the melee.  The No. 15 truck suffered extensive damage to the front-end and was forced to retire from the event.  Mitchell finished in 31st place.

“It was just one of those unlucky nights,” said Mitchell.  “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time…twice.  It’s too bad because we had a top-10 truck.  It handled great and was on its way up front before we had the tire go down.  Even after we went a couple of laps down, we would hang strong with the leaders on each restart.  They never put us another lap down.

“It looked like we were going to settle for a finish just outside the top-25, but we got caught up in another wreck.  I hate it for my team because we’ve all worked too hard to finish where we did.  We’ll just keep digging and turn things around next race.”