Kyle Busch has scored yet another victory in NASCAR’s third-tier division. Busch dominated the Lucas Oil 200 at Dover, leading over 75 percent of the event. The victory marks Busch’s fourth victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Dover, and it is 39th victory in 119 starts. This also marks the eighth time Busch had recorded a perfect rating in the Truck Series.
Throughout the first 22 laps, there were three cautions as Busch started to utilize higher groove.
Busch’s teammate, Darrell Wallace Jr. tapped the wall on Lap 43, forcing him to pit while in the sixth position.
As Kyle Busch was pitting on Lap 75, the caution came out for Brennan Newberry slamming the wall on the front stretch. Busch went from first to eighth, but worked his way to third within a lap.
“We were well inside of the top-10 and the NTS Motorsports guys were really good. We are trying to get some more exposure for Qore-24. My crew chief, Gere Kennon, had the truck working good where we actually practiced in the dark and kind of had a cloud. We were just trying to buy our time, and we were just catching people all of a sudden. Racing is tight here at Dover, and we didn’t get the groove that we wanted, and we ran out of real estate and spun around,” Newberry said after the race.
Crafton slammed the wall exiting turn two on Lap 157, forcing an abrupt end to his day as he seemingly had a truck that could contend with Busch for the victory. He entered Dover with an 11 point lead over Timothy Peters. After the race, Crafton said he broke a wheel and that was it. Now, Peters is ahead of Johnny Sauter and Crafton by just one marker.
German Quiroga got into Gray Gaulding entering turn three, sending the No. 20 Chevrolet spinning into the outside wall, and collecting Ben Rhodes in the process.
“ The No. 20 and No. 77 were battling hard and I was working on staying up high and setting him (Quiroga) up so I can work on the No. 20, but they got together entering the corner and the No. 77 was aero loose. They came together at the wrong time and collected me in the wreck,” Rhodes said.
Brandon Jones recorded a career-best finish of fourth after getting the lucky dog on the fifth caution of the day. Jones ran as high as second, but was able to earn his first career top-10 finish. Ryan Blaney was able to take advantage of Crafton’s wreck after running third all day, and finished runner-up to Busch.
There were a total of seven cautions with four different leaders and six lead changes.
