Category: RC Truck Series

On Friday afternoon at Dover International Speedway, it was all Kyle Busch as he dominated, leading 150 of the 200 laps on his way to winning the Lucas Oil 200. It marks Busch’s fourth victory this year in four starts.

“I can’t say enough about everyone on this Kyle Busch Motorsports team, everyone at Kyle Busch Motorsports chassis — they are building us some awesome chassis — they’re fast,” Busch commented. “I just want to say thanks to Toyota and Toyota Care that we had the Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award with us this week. I know the submissions are over, but it’s a great award at the end of the year that goes to the people that help the kids in their community the most. We appreciate people being able to do that and reminds us a lot of the Kyle Busch Foundation.”

Busch would lead from the pole all the way till lap 74 when he’d head down pit road under green just as the caution flew for Brennan Newberry wrecking on the frontstretch. Eric Phillips made the heads-up call to send Busch down pit road without stopping, keeping Busch on the lead lap. Busch would lose his track position, restarting seventh. He would then work his way through the field, passing Matt Crafton at lap 121 for the lead and never looking back.

“I’ve been loose in traffic even by leading just coming up on lapped trucks and everything,” Busch commented. “I basically came down pit road there when we were coming in for our stop and I said, ‘Hey, now that I’m going to be further back in traffic make sure you tighten me up some just to put some extra wedge in and put some extra track bar to it.’ Sometime to help secure the back of the truck just to make sure that I didn’t make a mistake back in traffic. It certainly took me a little bit to get back up to the front. I got to third real quick and then I just kind of stalled out there.

“The 88 (Matt Crafton) was really good. I hate to see Matt have trouble like that especially hits like that. I mean, man, I hope he’s alright. The 29 (Ryan Blaney) was fast. So, the 88 and the 29 we knew were in our league and those were the guys that we were going to race and those are the guys that I had the hardest time passing. But, overall, I just kind of bided my time. Knew I had a long ways to go.”

Ryan Blaney would run in the top-five all day, finishing second. It marks a good rebound for the second-generation driver following the bad luck that he has suffered the past two races. Johnny Sauter kept his consistency going, finishing third.

“It was an eventful day,” Sauter noted. “Just proud of everybody at ThorSport. Proud of my guys in the pits today. They were phenomenal. They’ve done a lot of work making that matter and I think that this finish has probably a lot to do with that. Our Nextant Aerospace/Curb Records Toyota was really good on the long run, I just lacked short run speed and kind of did all day like we talked about on the pre-race show. I just didn’t run my fastest lap in practice until lap 18.”

Brandon Jones and Joey Coulter rounded out the top five, followed by John Hunter Nemechek, Ben Kennedy, Tyler Reddick, German Quiroga and Timothy Peters. Notably, due to Busch’s speed, only seven trucks finished on the lead lap.

Gray Gaulding and Ben Rhodes were both running in the top 10 today, though wrecked out with 29 laps to go due to Quiroga getting loose and making contact with Gaulding.

“They gave me a great truck, but without practice, we were in a bad predicament,” Rhodes commented. “I was really loose at the beginning, fell back a bunch of spots. We were climbing our way back up through there. The 77 was passing the 20 – I was trying to go high and the 77 got aero loose, into the 20 and I was in the bad spot at the wrong time.”

Matt Crafton came in as the points leader, though had a tire go down while running in second spot, resulting in heavy contact with the wall with 45 laps to go.

“Just the right front went down. Just didn’t give me a lot of warning,” Crafton commented. “All of the sudden it went boom and it was good. First run we were good, second run we were a little off and we were trying to get it back to where it needed to be. We free’d it up a little too much, and I thought that we’d be in good shape for the end of the race.”

As a result, Peters moves into the points lead, one point ahead of Crafton and Sauter.

Kyle Busch would put on a clinic at Charlotte Motor Speedway as he dominated the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, leading all but four of the 134 laps. It marks Busch’s 38th career victory and his third victory in three starts this season. For Busch, it also marks his fourth victory in his last four starts dating back to Homestead-Miami Speedway in November of 2013.

Busch started on pole and led there, only failing to lead four laps when Joe Nemechek stayed out under caution.

“With all that debris, you’re never sure if you’ll avoid running  over something,” Busch commented. “Can’t say enough for these guys in the effort that they put in. It was a fun race for us. We were really strong, especially on the long runs; it seems guys would fall off.”

For Kyle Busch Motorsports, they have now won five of the last six races, with Toyota winning six consecutive races in a row.

Matt Crafton ran second all night to claim his third top 10 finish of the year as he leads the point standings, 11 points ahead of Timothy Peters.

“I’m going to have to whoop him,” Crafton said afterwards. “I’m getting tired of it but my guys did a great job tonight. We had enough fuel to get the track position back and I thought I could run with him but it got real tight. But like I said, it was a great race.”

Brad Keselowski would finish third for his second top 10 in five starts at Charlotte. Keselowski got four tires late and weaved his way through traffic, running out of time at the end.

“We tried to snooker Kyle but we need to find some more speed,” Keselowski commented. “We’re working on it and getting better.”

John Wes Townley and Timothy Peters rounded out the top five, followed by Johnny Sauter, Austin Dillon, Ben Kennedy, German Quiroga and Justin Lofton.

The race featured many incidents throughout as a bunch of drivers left the track upset and disappointed with their efforts. Justin Jennings was the first driver out of the event as he spun and hit the wall after a tire went flat at lap 19.

On lap 28, Jake Crum and Ryan Ellis would get together. Crum didn’t take lightly to the incident, spinning Ellis into the wall with 48 laps to go.

Ron Hornaday didn’t have a smooth night as he went spinning at lap 73, with the field luckily avoiding his No. 30 Rheem Chevrolet. Hornaday would start to work his way back up through the field, when he’d move down in front of Ben Kennedy, not being clear and result in another crash, this time collecting Mason Mingus and Crum.

“I feel bad for these Turner-Scott guys as they keep giving me good trucks and I keep screwing it up,” Hornaday said. “Come back through there and had a good run on Ben, thought that I’d cleared him and hadn’t.”

Restarts didn’t play nice tonight as Scott Riggs tried to move up and Tayler Malsam was there, resulting in Riggs sliding sideways and getting into Darrell Wallace Jr. Wallace would be a little shook up, but otherwise okay.

“I’m good now. It’s unfortunate,” Wallace commented. “We had some troubles with our battery. It looks like Riggs didn’t know we were three-wide, came up and squeezed them. I made the call to pit to change the battery and now I got to live with that call. We had a rough night at Kansas and then a rough night here.”

Blaney didn’t get a good draw either as Townley came down on him, resulting in Blaney going for a trip into the grass and then across the track and into Brian Ickler and the wall with 30 laps to go.

“We had a run on the 5 (Townley) and I was inside the 5 and he just pushed me in the dirt,” Blaney said. “We were side-by-side for a long time and he just turned dead left so not sure what he was thinking there. Felt like I had a truck to catch the 51 and the 88 and shit happens.”

Perhaps the worst luck of the night goes to Jeb Burton as he had a good run going inside the top-five when he’d wreck on the last lap after he and German Quiroga got together as they raced for position around the lap truck of Norm Benning.

It looks to be the start of the Kyle Busch show this weekend as Busch scored the pole for the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Busch lapped the 1.5-mile oval in 29.384 seconds for his 14th career pole award. It marks Busch’s second pole as he searches for another win following the victory at Kansas Speedway.

Defending series champion Matt Crafton qualified second for his fourth top-10 start of the season as he heads into Charlotte with an eight-point lead over Timothy Peters.

In his first truck start this year, Brad Keselowski qualified third as he searches for his first truck win as a car owner. Ron Hornaday and Brian Ickler rounded out the top five.

Ben Kennedy will start sixth, followed by Johnny Sauter, Jeb Burton, Timothy Peters and Ryan Blaney.

When the trucks hit the half-mile paperclip shaped race track on Sunday, there was no holding back the action as drivers young and old bumped and banged for every position.

In the end, it was a champion rising to the occasion as 2013 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Champion Matt Crafton scored the victory for the first ever Grandfather clock of his career.

“I didn’t think we were going to get it on those first two runs but that’s just how these guys are,” Crafton said post-race. “They kept making adjustments and I can’t thank them enough. I got to thank those guys that raced me clean – Peters, Wallace.”

Crafton ran just outside of the top 10 for the most of the first half of the event while Timothy Peters and Johnny Sauter. However under a caution with just over 50 to go, Crafton was able to get off pit road in second behind Peters. Crafton used that to his advantage, grabbing the lead with 40 laps to go.

From then, Crafton was able to hold off all charges over the course of the next four restarts – including a pair of green-white-checkereds – to score the victory. While Crafton isn’t known for being a short track racer, he did finish second last year in the spring to his teammate Sauter.

Last year’s fall race winner Darrell Wallace Jr. came home second after rooting Peters out of the way on the second green-white-checkered. It marks his third top five at Martinsville in three starts.

Rookie Ben Kennedy finished third despite running just outside the top five most of the day for his second Martinsville top five; he finished fourth last fall.

Sauter finished fourth after virtually getting into everybody throughout the day for various positions, including contact with Erik Jones that resulted in the 16-year-old going for a spin under the first green-white-checkered.

“If anyone has a problem with me, they can come find me, anytime, anywhere, any time of the day,” Sauter said post-race. “I’m waiting…I’m ready. Where is everybody?”

Sauter added that he was aggressive because he was tired of being run-over in the past.

Ryan Blaney finished fifth, followed by Red Horse Racing teammates Timothy Peters and German Quiroga. Peters and Quiroga had words following the race after contact that ensured on the last lap between the pair of teammates, and carried on post-race.

“Wild and exciting at Martinsville,” Peters said. “First the 54 (Wallace) moved us out of the way but I didn’t expect my own teammate to do it. I feel bad for everybody at Red Horse Racing – but German has a lot to learn. It’s Martinsville. People get mad.”

Peters wasn’t the only one who had words with Quiroga as Ron Hornaday also had some things to say after Quiroga sent the champ for a spin. Ben Rhodes finished eighth, followed by Hornaday and Brian Ickler.

Cole Custer finished 11th in his first career truck series start despite contact with Brandon Jones and Gray Gaulding that sent Gaulding for a spin on the backstretch. Custer and Gaulding have a history from the K&N Pro West Series after an incident last year at Phoenix International Raceway.

“My thing after the way he did to us at Phoenix, I wasn’t going to go out there and intentionally wreck him but if he did something to us again, I was going make sure he wasn’t going to get by us or have something happen,” Custer commented on the contact. “But, we were racing hard there (at the end) and he got spun out, so that’s what happened.”

One of the biggest incidents of the day was a caution at lap 123 when both Bryan Silas and Spencer Gallagher received heavy damage. Caleb Holman got into Gallagher, causing Gallagher to spin in the path of traffic which left no where for Silas to go. Afterwards, Gallagher threw his HANS device at Holman’s truck.

“Dude was driving like a lobotomized starfish all day,” Gallagher said in regards to Holman.

Air Titan 2.0 tried with the aid of the jet dryers, but it wasn’t enough as rain has postponed the NASCAR Camping World Series Kroger 200 till Sunday after the Sprint Cup Series race. NASCAR says the race will be ran at approximately 5:30 p.m. EST.

FOX has announced that the Cup race will air on FOX as scheduled, while they’ll air the truck race on FOX Sports 1.

When the field does take the green flag, defending race winner Darrell Wallace Jr. will start the race on pole after qualifying was washed out with the field was set by practice speeds yesterday.

He will be joined on the front row by fellow sophomore driver Ryan Blaney, followed by Timothy Peters, Erik Jones and Ron Hornaday Jr. Hornaday Jr. is hoping to run the full schedule this year with Turner-Scott Motorsports, but it’ll depend on sponsorship moving forward.

Rookie Ben Kennedy will start sixth, followed by Brian Ickler, German Quiroga, Cole Custer and Matt Crafton. Custer is making his first career truck series start this weekend. Last year’s spring winner Johnny Sauter will start 14th

Here’s the full Kroger 250 starting lineup –>

With rain persistantly falling down on Martinsville Speedway, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying for hte Kroger 200 was rained out. As a result, the starting line-up was set based on the practice speeds from yesterday’s practice.

Darrell Wallace Jr. will lead the field to the green flag in his No. 54 Toyota No. 1 For Everyone Sales Event Toyota. Wallace Jr. finished top five in both races at Martinsville last year, scoring his first career win in the fall event.

“We were fast here in the spring last year so we’re backing that up again,” Wallace commented yesterday following practice. “We had a little heart attack moment when (Ryan) Blaney knocked me off of the top so we bolted on another set of stickers and went out there and took it back from him. He wasn’t too happy, but I had to keep it going. Very, very happy about my Toyota Tundra.”

He will be joined on the front row by fellow sophomore driver Ryan Blaney, followed by Timothy Peters, Erik Jones and Ron Hornaday Jr. Hornaday Jr. is hoping to run the full schedule this year with Turner-Scott Motorsports, but it’ll depend on sponsorship moving forward.

Rookie Ben Kennedy will start sixth, followed by Brian Ickler, German Quiroga, Cole Custer and Matt Crafton. Custer is making his first career truck series start this weekend. Last year’s spring winner Johnny Sauter will start 14th later this afternoon.

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series are hoping to run the full 200 lap event this afternoon once the rain stops.

For the first time in the 2014 season, the Camping World Truck Series hit the highbanks of the Daytona International Speedway for practice. At the end of the first session, it was a rookie topping the charts.

Ben Kennedy put his No. 31 Florida Lottery – Whelen Chevrolet Silverado on the top of the speed charts with a lap of 46.676 seconds. Kennedy will be running the full 2014 schedule for Turner-Scott Motorsports as he steps into the truck previously piloted by James Buescher. Kennedy ran the K&N Pro East Series last year, having a solid season.

Ron Hornaday Jr. was second quickest as he once again teams up with TSM. He ran for the team in last year’s season finale at Homestead-Miami. The plan for Hornaday in 2014 is a part-time truck series schedule with TSM.

“I’m ecstatic to be down here,” Hornaday commented. “It’s going to have fun simply being down here driving.”

Defending series champion Matt Crafton was third, followed by Joey Coulter and John Wes Townley.

Johnny Sauter was sixth, followed by Ryan Sieg, Joe Nemechek, Parker Kligerman and Jeb Burton.

For Michel Disdier, the practice didn’t go as planned as he blew a motor early in practice.  Brennan Newberry also ran into problems as his hood flew up, resulting in damage to the roof of his Silverado. He will be going to a back-up truck.

The Nextra Energy Resources 250 will take place on Friday night as the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series opens their 2014 season.

Matt Crafton captured the 2013 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) title on Friday night at the series season ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Crafton entered Homestead with a 46-point lead over Ty Dillon and all he had to do was start the race to win his first championship in 13 seasons.

Crafton had front end damage from a late wreck, but the 37-year old the Tulare, Calif.-native drove his ThorSport Racing No. 88 Menards Toyota Tundra to a 21st-place finish and captured the title by 40 points over second-place Ty Dillon.

Crafton won one race (Kansas), captured seven top-five finishes, 19 top-10 finishes in 22 races and held onto the series points lead since the fourth race of the season.

“It’s an honor to be able to drive this Menards Toyota Tundra,” said Crafton.  “To be able to do this for Duke and Rhonda Thorson (team owners) that have been doing this for 18 years, and to give them their first championship and me driving for them for 14 years.”

“These guys are the ones that work so hard.  I’m just the one that gets to celebrate and look like the hero because I got to drive a great truck all year.” Crafton added.

Despite winning the championship, the series owners’ championship went to Kyle Busch on a tiebreaker.

“It’s kind of aggravating because we wanted the owners’ championship as well, but it happens.” Crafton said.

Busch won the race, capturing his fifth win of the season, and secured the championship tie-breaker with more wins than Crafton.

“It means a lot.  Man, this is so much fun to come out and race, for one, to win races, two, and to contend for owner’s championships. It’s big for us.  I can’t say enough about this team.” Busch said.

Ryan Blaney finished second, Jeb Burton third, Brendan Gaughan fourth and Ron Hornaday Jr. rounded out the top-5.

Dillon finished second in the series standings, James Buescher third, Johnny Sauter fourth and Jeb Burton ended up fifth.

With 18 laps to go, Kyle Busch would take the lead from Austin Dillon and set sail. He would then hold off Brendan Gaughan on three different green-white-checkered attempts to win the Ford EcoBoost 200.

It marks Busch’s fifth win of the season and gave Kyle Busch Motorsports the owners’ championship in a tie-breaker with the No. 88 ThorSport Racing truck.

“It means a lot to Kyle Busch Motorsports, myself, my wife and most importantly all of our employees,” Busch commented after the race. “It’s so much fun to come out here for one to race, but two to win races and have some fun. Thanks to our sponsor for their support. I can’t say enough for this team and Rudy and the guys that he had to work with this year including Hackenbract, Bloomquist and especially Jones last week. Without that win, we wouldn’t have had a chance to win it this week.”

The pair tied after Matt Crafton finished 21st with the tie-breaker coming down to wins. Busch had five wins this season – Charlotte, Dover, Bristol, Chicago and Homestead. A sixth win came for the No. 51 ToyotaCare Tundra last weekend with Erik Jones taking the win.

Crafton only had one win on the season – Kansas – but it was enough to hand him the 2013 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver’s championship. By starting the race, Crafton clinched the title.

“It’s been so cool,” Crafton said. “Menards, Duke and Rhonda Thorson and everyone that makes it possible. It’s an honor to get these guys the championship after all their hard work.

“I can’t say how much the whole year means to us. The last couple of months has been a huge burden on my shoulders just trying to sleep at night.”

Crafton ran inside the top 10 early on, though a poor pit stop due to a hung lugnut put him back in traffic. Caught in the midst of three and four-wide racing, Joey Coulter would come up across Crafton’s front bumper with two laps to go, causing Crafton to hit the wall. Crafton said after the race that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when it came to the wreck.

Crafton would drive his wrecked No. 88 Menards Toyota Tundra to the 21st spot, coming up just shy of the owner’s title.

After making a charge late at Busch off the final corner, Ryan Blaney would finish second and win the 2013 Rookie of the Year title. At the age of 19 years old, Blaney becomes the youngest driver to win the award in the CWTS.

Blaney led the first half of the race after winning the pole, though got into the wall with 41 laps to go while leading, causing him to have to make a late race charge.

“What coulda been? We had a great Cooper Standard Ford and led a bunch of laps,” Blaney said of his night. “I just lost concentration for a couple laps and got into the wall. You’re on the edge, running half an inch off the wall and got in there. I apologize for that. I tried to get Brendan (Gaughan) going  on the restart and lifted him up – sorry about that. If I could’ve got by him sooner, I may have had a shot.”

Brendan Gaughan, who finished fourth in the race, had a different take on the final restart.

“We kept spinning tires on the restart,” Gaughan commented. “He lifted me up there – I get he was trying to push me, but he’s young and there’s a difference between pushing and lifting me up.”

Jeb Burton finished third overall, capping off a solid rookie season that was highlighted by his win at Texas Motor Speedway.

Ron Hornaday rounded out the top five as he was up fighting for the lead in the late going. Hornaday drove the No. 34 for Turner-Scott Motorsports after he was let go from NTS Motorsports following last weekend’s race at Phoenix International Raceway.

“This is so cool to have friends like Mr. Turner, Turner-Scott Motorsports, Smokey Mountain Snuff and guys like Mr. Hendrick to build the motor,” Hornaday said. “When you go to get into the truck and you have five crew chiefs there, it means a lot. Hopefully we can work out something for later.”

John Wes Townley finished sixth followed by German Quiroga, Ross Chastain, Timothy Peters and last year’s race winner Cale Gale.