After qualifying 13th and finishing 13th in each of the first two stages of Friday night’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, crew chief Jimmy Villeneuve made a fuel-only pit call early in the Final Stage to improve track position and save his final set of sticker tires for later in the race.
The Bama Buggies Silverado was the first truck off pit lane and put Chase Purdy on point for the restart with 45 laps remaining in the event. Unfortunately, the truck behind Purdy had a bad restart and was unable to give him a push and he found himself three-wide in the middle lane and fell back to the 15th position by the time the next caution occurred eight laps later.
Purdy was running just inside the top 20 when the fifth and final caution occurred with 30 laps remaining in the event. Villeneuve summoned his young driver to pit road for the final set of Goodyear tires and the No. 4 Chevrolet would line up on the top of the 15th row for the ensuing restart with 24 laps remaining.
With fresher tires than the majority of the field, Purdy began to maneuver his way forward after the race went back to green-flag-conditions. He returned to the top 20 with just under 20 laps remaining. Purdy was hoping another caution would fly in the closing laps to bunch the field, but the race proceeded caution free to the end and he would end the race in the 16th position
Chase Purdy, Driver of the No. 4 Bama Buggies Chevrolet:
Talk about your race.
“It was a frustrating night. Felt like we had a good truck in the middle to long-run all night, it was just too late to have such a good truck. I didn’t do as good of job as I needed to on pit road and on restarts. There at the end on fresh tires we were making pretty good headway and I thought we were going to drive back up into the top 10 and something happened — the motor went down the last 15 laps and seemed like there were some other issues going on. Without those issues I think we would definitely drove back into the top 10.”
North Carolina Education Lottery 200 Recap:
Ben Rhodes won Friday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200. It was his first Truck Series victory of 2023 and the seventh of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career. Corey Heim finished second, while Dean Thompson, Carson Hocevar and Grant Enfinger rounded out the top five.
There were five cautions for 32 laps and 12 lead changes among five drivers.
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Point Standings:
Purdy remained 13th in the Craftsman Truck Series point standings. After 11 races he sits 36 points below the cutoff line for making the post season with five races remaining in the regular season.
