Chase Purdy started Thursday’s UNOH 200 from third position following a strong qualifying effort earlier in the day. The Mississippi native was in contention for his second consecutive pole position until he was eclipsed but two of the last few trucks that went out in qualifying.

Purdy struggled to find the right balance on the Bama Buggies Chevrolet early in the race as he dealt with a tight entry into the corners and a loose exit from that lack of grip through the center of the corners. After finishing 11th in the opening stage, he made his way back to finish eighth in Stage Two.

In the final stage, Purdy used more lane discipline and was much more confident in his ability to run the bottom lane which allowed him to keep competitors behind him better than in the early stages. He would go on to finish eighth, registering his ninth top-10 finish of 2023. 

Talk about your race.

“We had a pretty solid truck tonight, brought it home eighth. Which is not bad but were not satisfied with that. Honestly, we qualified third but just felt we didn’t have the pace of those other guys. I’ve got some things to work on myself as a driver for us to get better. I’m still really proud of my guys after the frustrating night we had at Kansas last week. We executed practice and qualifying really well today. We’ll take the positives from today and move forward to Talladega.”

·     Corey Heim won Thursday night’s UNOH 200 presented by Ohio Logistics and locked himself into the Championship 4 of the Truck Series playoffs. It was his third victory of 2023 and the fifth of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career. Christian Eckes finished second, while Grant Enfinger, Carson Hocevar, and Taylor Gray rounded out the top five.

·     There were four cautions for 33 laps and four lead changes among four drivers.

Purdy maintains 11th in the Craftsman Truck Series driver point standings, which is the highest that a non-playoff driver can be.