The challenges started with the morning warmup when Santino Ferrucci entered the pits with smoke trailing from the No. 14. It was determined that he would need a different engine and the crew set about switching out the power plants.

The morning warmup went better for David Malukas in the No. 4 Chevrolet who was 15th on the speed charts and happier with his car following some tweaks after yesterday’s qualifying round.

Starting 11th, Ferrucci battled a car that couldn’t be adjusted with air pressure changes or the tools that driver has within his cockpit. Ferrucci finished 20th.

“Obviously, a long day,” said Ferrucci. “We had a motor change, couldn’t run warm up, couldn’t even put the car on the setup pad before going out for the race. Honestly, the guys did a phenomenal job with what we had. We were stuck with the trim, which we didn’t want because of the heat. All in all, probably one of the toughest races I think I’ve had in a while, trying to handle the car and some moves to try and keep us in the game. Excited to be done with turning left and right, and ready to be just turning left.”

After a promising warmup session, David Malukas was feeling better about his chances in the race. In the first 14 laps he advanced from 26th to 16th. However rising temps on his gauges warned him that all was not well with the No. 4. By lap 69, he had lost power due to overheating. He pulled off the track and brought out the first (and only) caution since St. Petersburg, thus ending the string of caution-free races at three. He scored 23rd.

“Well, we were around 15 laps short,” Malukas said afterwards. “It just kind of sums up the start of this season. We got unlucky again. Had some overheating issues, and our race ended up short there, which is really unfortunate, because I think we had a really good race car coming up from the back. Qualifying was a little bit of a rough performance from my side. But through the race, we started moving ourselves forward and making some good positions. Unfortunately, it just didn’t play out for us. We made a lot of good gains with a lot of positives. We have to just get our heads down for the month of May, which with A.J. Foyt normally, the history, it’s been very, very strong here. Hopefully all this bad luck that’s been happening will be gone. Maybe the Pope, who’s from Chicago, can give us some help for the 500.”