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NASCAR Championship Battle Narrows After Kansas

Zane Smith takes the checkered flag at Kansas Speedway after winning a 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event. (Photo: NKP)

In a Nutshell

The third time was the charm for Zane Smith.

The 22-year-old upstart picked up his third win of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season Saturday night (May 14) at Kansas Speedway. Smith now has as many victories in the past eight races as his first two years of running the series full time.

ThorSport Racing’s Ty Majeski finished a career-best second while GMS Racing’s Grant Enfinger came in third. Chandler Smith rebounded from a poor pit stop that sent him down a lap to finish fourth while Christian Eckes rounded out the top five.

Finishing off the top 10 were John Hunter Nemechek, Matt DiBenedetto, Derek Kraus, Matt Crafton and point leader Ben Rhodes.

The Win That Could’ve Been

On lap 106, Corey Heim, who won stage one and led 18 laps, smacked the wall in his No. 51 JBL Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota and was forced to enter the pits. It added insult to injury for the 19-year-old Georgia driver, who also reported engine woes prior to his date with the wall. He finished 10 laps off the pace in 33rd.

Prior to the race, Road Ranger announced a new partnership with ThorSport Racing to serve as the primary sponsor on the No. 66 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro of Majeski at Texas and four additional races this season. It was a fantastic opening to the partnership as Majeski came within 1.653 seconds of scoring his first-ever Camping World Truck Series victory.

Chandler Smith lost a lap after running out of fuel at the end of stage one. However, he recovered to finish fourth.

Race Notes

Smith, in his No. 38 Speedco Ford, led a career-high 108 of 134 laps for his sixth truck win.

KBM trucks occupied two of the top-10 spots with Smith and John Hunter Nemechek finishing fourth and sixth, respectively. However, the single-truck operation of Bob Jenkins and their star driver, Zane Smith, led 81 percent of the laps.

Smith nearly ran out of gas at the end of stage one, which could have ruined his…

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