Fresh off a solid finish at Michigan International Speedway, Ron Hornaday and the No. 9 Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff Chevrolet Silverado team hoped to capitalize on Hornaday’s success at Bristol Motor Speedway for their first win this season in the 13th stop of the 2013 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) season.
Securing the 15th starting position for the UNOH 200, Hornaday slipped to the 17th position early in the race. As he made his way to the bottom groove, his spotter let him know his truck seemed to like to the bottom the best and Hornaday was able to move his No. 9 machine up to the 12th position by lap 57.
As the race continued under a long green-flag run, Hornaday moved up to 11th on lap 70 when the second caution of the race waved for a spin on the track. Happy with the handling of his Silverado, Hornaday pitted for four tires and fuel. The race restarted on lap 77 and following a fast stop by the Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff team, Hornaday restarted the race from the eighth spot.
Charging up to sixth, after the restart, the race was quickly slowed again as the caution was displayed on lap 81 for an incident on the front straightaway. The race restarted on lap 88 with Hornaday in the fifth position.
Focused on the front of the field, Hornaday moved his No. 9 Silverado into the fourth position on lap 93, running lap times comparable to the leaders.
Closing in on the final 50 laps, Hornaday maintained his spot in the top five as the racing heated up and Hornaday found himself in heavy side-by-side racing. Slipping a few positions, Hornaday was scored in the seventh position with 25 laps remaining in the UNOH 200.
With 22 laps remaining in the race, the fourth caution flag waved for another incident on the front straightaway. Hornaday radioed the team that his Silverado still felt good, just a tick tight on the long green-flag runs. The team called Hornaday to pit road for four tires and a splash of fuel. The race restarted on lap 186 with Hornaday in the eighth position, but as quickly as the green flag waved, the yellow was again displayed. The team opted to keep Hornaday on track for position and the race restarted on lap 193.
Over the final seven laps, Hornaday found himself in the middle of two and three-wide racing and was able to survive a wild finish to cross the finish line in the eighth position.
Hornaday Hype:
“Our Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff team made great progress throughout the race and Bruce Cook made the right calls to put us in the top five for a lot of the race. The racing was typical hard short-track racing. While we didn’t get the win, I am proud of how our NTS Motorsports team is improving and I’m excited to go to Canada next weekend.”
NTS Motorsports PR
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