Johnny Sauter celebrates after winning Friday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Chris Trotman/NASCAR via Getty Images
Johnny Sauter had just moved past Ryan Truex to take the lead as the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series field entered the final lap of Friday night’s NextEra Energy Resources 250 at Daytona International Speedway.
Behind him, rookie driver Christopher Bell, who had pushed Sauter to the lead, broke sideways after contact from behind from William Byron and tagged Timothy Peters on the inside line.
Bell’s truck went tumbling side-over-side some 13 times, bringing out the caution and ending the race, giving Sauter his second career Daytona Truck Series victory.
Bell climbed out of his destroyed No. 4 Toyota under his own power. According to Kyle Busch Motorsports officials, Bell was transported to a local as a precaution and was evaluated and released early Saturday morning.
Meanwhile Sauter drove his Chevrolet to victory lane, giving the manufacturer its first Truck Series win at Daytona.
“I honestly can’t say that I’m surprised that we’re here,” said Sauter. “I mean, I felt like after practice yesterday that we had as good a truck as anybody. I knew we had raw speed. It’s one thing — and we proved it tonight. I’ve always had trucks that maybe didn’t qualify that great down here, but we were able to win once before. But when a truck runs fast by itself, it really runs fast in the draft, too, so I did learn that tonight.”
The win is the 11th of Sauter’s career, and it locks him into the Truck Series Chase for the Championship later this year. But Sauter said that won’t change the way he drives this season.
“We’re going to drive hard,” he said. “The goal is to win every week. This probably makes things feel a little bit more comfortable, I guess, knowing that if there is an opportunity to maybe try some technology that you normally wouldn’t do if you hadn’t won a race, but I’m going to drive as hard as I can week in and week out. I want to win 10 races this year.”
The wild finish followed another scary moment a few laps earlier.
With eight laps to go, Sauter was racing for the lead with Truex. Behind the leaders, as the field raced side by side, third place Christopher Haley was tagged from behind by King, sending Haley’s truck up the track and into John Hunter Nemechek and Matt Crafton, setting off a huge crash that gathered up 16 trucks, resulting in a red flag condition.
Among those caught up in the accident was pole sitter Grant Enfinger, John Wes Townley, Daniel Suarez, Ben Kennedy, Cole Custer, Chris Fontaine, Rico Abreu. The red flag lasted for over 27 minutes while crews cleaned up the track.
That set up the final two lap run to the checkers, with Sauter scoring the win.
“That last restart was very hairy to say the least,” said Sauter. “I thought I was in big trouble there. We lost momentum initially when we got into turn 1, and I thought, well, we’re going to end up finishing fifth or sixth here, and next thing I know the 4 truck came barreling back and pushing and pushing and hitting and banging and sideways, and the thing picked up like 500 rpms instantly, and here we came.”
While NASCAR’s new Caution Clock, designed to break up green flag runs every 20 minutes unless a caution comes out before time runs out, never really was a factor, the threat of the clock counting down did cause some mayhem.
With the clock under 2 minutes before the caution, several teams made the call to pit early in an attempt to get an edge of those who stayed out until time ran out. As a group of trucks hit pit road on lap 42, the No. 18 of Cody Coughlin ran into the back of the No. 23 of Spencer Gallagher under breaking. The contact sent Coughlin’s truck into the inside wall, while Gallagher’s truck went into the infield grass and got stuck. Bell also received left rear damage on his Toyota, but was still fast enough to be part of the last lap fracas.
Truex just missed his shot at victory lane, and had to settle for a hard earned second place.
“If that wreck wouldn’t have happened I think we had him,” said Truex. “The bottom was just the place to be all day. It seemed like you could hook up and bump draft to the front. It was really hard to do and there was a lot of guys that couldn’t do it properly. The 13, Hayley, really pushed me well and got me to the front and kept me there. So I’ve got to thank him for that.”
Parker Kligerman finished in third and had a front row seat for the last lap crash.
“I was pushing the 17 as hard as I could,” Kligerman said. “I saw Johnny coming, I should have moved up, and as we came — the 4 was really loose even 20 laps before that. I mean, the 4 was just constantly sideways. Kudos to Chris Bell for holding onto that as long as he did, but then eventually he just lost it.
“I saw him turning the 17, and all I saw was the under side of his truck, and it was really reminiscent I think it was 2012 where Joey Coulter did a similar thing on the 22 truck. You just kind of see the under side and then you know something happened, you look in the mirror and you see a bunch of smoke.”
Brandon Brown finished in fourth, with Travis Kvapil in fifth.
Tyler Young, Ben Rhodes, Daniel Hemric, Scott Lagasse, Jr. and Crafton rounded out the top ten.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Daytona International Speedway – Daytona Beach, FL
NextEra Energy Resources 250 – Feb. 19, 2016
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1. (2) Johnny Sauter, Chevrolet, 100
2. (20) Ryan Truex, Toyota, 100
3. (23) Parker Kligerman, Ford, 100
4. (22) Brandon Brown, Chevrolet, 100
5. (32) Travis Kvapil, Chevrolet, 100
6. (21) Tyler Young, Chevrolet, 100
7. (24) Ben Rhodes #, Toyota, 100
8. (18) Daniel Hemric, Ford, 100
9. (26) Scott Lagasse, Jr.(i), Chevrolet, 100
10. (6) Matt Crafton, Toyota, 100
11. (29) Michel Disdier, Chevrolet, 100
12. (25) Bobby Gerhart(i), Chevrolet, 100
13. (13) William Byron #, Toyota, 100
14. (30) Timmy Hill, Chevrolet, 100
15. (3) Timothy Peters, Toyota, 100
16. (8) Christopher Bell #, Toyota, 99
17. (15) John H Nemechek, Chevrolet, 99
18. (12) Tyler Reddick, Ford, 99
19. (19) Austin Wayne Self, Toyota, 99
20. (1) Grant Enfinger #, Chevrolet, 98
21. (11) Spencer Gallagher, Chevrolet, 96
22. (17) Chris Fontaine, Toyota, Accident, 95
23. (31) Ben Kennedy, Toyota, Accident, 93
24. (10) Cole Custer #, Chevrolet, Accident, 93
25. (14) Cameron Hayley, Toyota, Accident, 92
26. (7) John Wes Townley, Chevrolet, Accident, 92
27. (4) Austin Theriault, Ford, Accident, 92
28. (5) Daniel Suarez(i), Toyota, Accident, 92
29. (16) Rico Abreu #, Toyota, Accident, 92
30. (27) Jordan Anderson, Chevrolet, Rear Gear, 75
31. (9) Cody Coughlin #, Toyota, Accident, 41
32. (28) Tommy Joe Martins, Chevrolet, Accident, 11
Average Speed of Race Winner: 129.032 mph.
Time of Race: 01 Hrs, 56 Mins, 15 Secs. Margin of Victory: Caution.
Caution Flags: 7 for 29 laps.
Lead Changes: 26 among 10 drivers.
Lap Leaders: G. Enfinger # 0; A. Theriault 1; G. Enfinger # 2-3; A. Theriault 4-9; G. Enfinger # 10; J. Sauter 11-13; T. Reddick 14-20; A. Theriault 21; J. Sauter 22-24; M. Crafton 25-29; A. Theriault 30-44; T. Kvapil 45-46; T. Peters 47-51; A. Theriault 52-59; J. Sauter 60-63; C. Hayley 64-66; T. Hill 67; T. Peters 68-70; T. Reddick 71-75; T. Peters 76-82; C. Hayley 83; R. Truex 84; G. Enfinger # 85; R. Truex 86-91; J. Sauter 92; R. Truex 93-99; J. Sauter 100;.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): A. Theriault 5 times for 31 laps; T. Peters 3 times for 15 laps; R. Truex 3 times for 14 laps; J. Sauter 5 times for 12 laps; T. Reddick 2 times for 12 laps; M. Crafton 1 time for 5 laps; C. Hayley 2 times for 4 laps; G. Enfinger # 3 times for 4 laps; T. Kvapil 1 time for 2 laps; T. Hill 1 time for 1 lap.
Top 10 in Points: J. Sauter – 36; R. Truex – 32; P. Kligerman – 30; B. Brown – 29; T. Kvapil – 29; T. Young – 27; B. Rhodes # – 26; D. Hemric – 25; M. Crafton – 24; M. Disdier – 22.
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