Rowdy Emerges with Six-Shooters in Truck Race at Texas

In A Nutshell

Kyle Busch was not going to be denied in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, despite the best efforts of Corey Heim and Christian Eckes.

Busch held off Heim to win his second Truck Series race of the season, and the 66th of his career. Busch had to survive a series of late restarts, including the final one, in which he wasn’t the leader. Despite leading the most laps and sweeping the stages, the Truckers made him earn this one.

Heim had to settle for second, with Nick Sanchez in third. Eckes faded to fourth despite leading on the final restart with 10 laps to go. Zane Smith rounded out the top five.

The Top Truckers at Texas Motor Speedway

Winner, Stage One and Two Winner, Most Laps Led (90 of 167 laps): Kyle Busch
Polesitter: Nick Sanchez
Rookie of the Race: Conner Jones
Biggest Mover: Tanner Gray (started 34th, finished eighth)

Top Storylines of the Race

• It only took a lap and a half before a multi-truck accident occurred. Thad Moffitt had an apparent steering issue, causing his No. 46 to veer left and get clobbered by Tyler Ankrum, who had to start in the rear after crashing in practice and moving to a backup. Moffitt then careened into the No. 20 of Memphis Villarreal, who couldn’t sneak through on the outside and also suffered heavy damage. All three drivers were done for the night.
• Following a Rajah Caruth spin on lap 12, the race went green all the way until lap 130, when Layne Riggs crashed at the tail end of a green flag pit cycle to bring out a late caution.
• The usual Truck Series late-race meltdown began to emerge with a couple of late race cautions, but luckily the racing didn’t get disrespectful and any contact late in the race was mostly incidental.

The Winning Move

The stats will show that Busch absolutely dominated the race, and while that’s true, the cautions at the end of the race sure made him work for it.

At the time of the Riggs caution, two drivers had yet to make their final pit stop: Smith and Lawless Alan. Plus, several drivers were trapped at least one lap down, causing only 16 drivers to take the restart on the lead lap.

Then Kris Wright and Stewart Friesen collided to bring out a caution just four laps later. When the race restarted with 16 laps to go, there was another quick caution on the same lap for a multi-truck accident that ended Grant Enfinger‘s night.

During that near-lap of racing, Eckes was able to get to…