The Monster Mile lived up to its name Friday for Baltimore native Justin Boston. After running as high as sixth, Boston was part of a two-truck accident on lap 66 which ended his race much too soon.
Boston started his ROK Mobile Tundra in eighth place and moved up to sixth within the first few laps. He said the truck was pretty good but a little loose off the corners. He was in seventh place when he made his first pit stop under caution on lap 34 for four tires and a track bar adjustment to tighten up the truck a bit. NASCAR officials said he drove through too many pit stalls leaving the pits. They issued a penalty sending him to the rear of the lead-lap trucks for the restart.
Boston restarted the race in 17th place on lap 40 and was determined to get up to the front again. He was up to 12th place on lap 66 when his day took a bad turn. He had the ROK Mobile Tundra on the apron a bit which pushed his truck up the track. Unfortunately, Brandon Jones was outside of him and did not give him any racing room. The contact sent Boston into the wall which caused severe damage to the truck, leaving him unable to finish the race. He was credited with a 25th-place finish.
“It definitely was an unfortunate day for us here,” Boston said. “This is my home track and we had a really fast ROK Mobile Tundra. To be honest I’m really upset. There are a couple guys who run you really close in this series and don’t give you an inch of room. When you’re that early in the race, you have to give guys some room and that’s what happened. I ran out of room on the apron and came up on the track and hit the No. 33 (Brandon Jones) and ended our day. It’s unfortunate, but we’ll go get them in Texas. We have fast trucks and we’re moving in the right direction, it’s just a shame we didn’t get to run all the laps today.”
Tyler Reddick won the race, followed by Boston’s KBM teammates Daniel Suarez and Erik Jones. Daniel Hemric and Matt Crafton rounded out the top-five finishers. Boston fell three positions to 11th in the driver championship point standings.
KBM PR
