Tyler Reddick (@TylerReddick) remained in the thick of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship battle by scoring a fifth place finish in the Kroger 200 Saturday afternoon at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Reddick grabbed his second consecutive top five and third top 10 in four starts at the .526-mile speedway. He has an average finish of 8.00 at Martinsville and has completed all 914 laps. Tyler claimed his fourth top five finish in five short track races this season – best of any driver in the series.
Tyler is third is the series championship standings but gained five points and now trails the leader by just 13 points with three races remaining. The driver of Brad Keselowski’s Checkered Flag Foundation Ford F-150 racked up his 11th top five this season.
Reddick kicked his race day off with a strong performance qualifying where he earned the fourth place starting position, his best in four Martinsville races.
Once the race started, Tyler ran among the leaders during the 200 lap event. He was running fifth when he made his first scheduled pit stop for fuel and tires under the second caution on lap 36.
Reddick restarted ninth when the race went green on lap 42 and 10 laps later was back inside the top five. He was sixth following a restart on lap 82 and ran there until he made his final pit stop for four tires and fuel under the sixth caution on lap 123. Speedy pit work moved Reddick up to fifth place when the race restarted on lap 129.
Over the final 70 laps, Reddick stayed in the top five and cleanly picked his way through six cautions and six physical restarts.
Tyler lined up fifth for the final restart on lap 198. He picked off fourth place off Turn 4 coming to the white flag and then dove inside Cameron Haley at the entrance to Turn 1 in an effort to take third.
Haley swerved to block Reddick’s move and the two made contact, sending both trucks up the track. Cole Custer wedged his way under Reddick, pulled alongside off Turn 2 and edged Tyler for fourth place at the checkered flag.
BKR PR
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