Kyle Busch was able to hang on to win a caution-plagued SFP 250 at Kansas Speedway Friday night.
He started on the pole and a pole winner hadn’t won a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) since 2012, but it was done Friday night after Busch battled to win the race.
Busch started third on the final restart and raced Crafton hard as he moved through the field and Crafton held his ground. Lapped traffic played into Busch’s hand as he was able to get to the second position with 26 laps to go in the race. He would take the lead with 21 laps to go and he would grab the win.
The race began with a green flag but the flag color changed to yellow in the same lap as Ron Hornaday, Jr. spun. Timothy Peters suffered damage in the wreck and had to go to the garage. The race would restart on lap 7 but another caution would come out two laps later. Brian Ickler got into the wall as he was going for the fourth place spot. Todd Shafer spun just prior to that. The third caution would be for Shafer on lap 35.
A scary caution occurred on lap 86 as Ryan Blaney was battling his Brad Keselowski Racing teammate, Joey Logano, for the lead. Blaney told FoxSports1 that aerodynamics played a part in the incident as he barely clipped the apron which caused his truck to get loose. It looked like he was going to save his truck from hitting the wall hard. The back end of the truck lightly bounced off the wall. In a blink of an eye, Johnny Sauter squeezed by Blaney up against the wall and out of nowhere Tyler Young smacked the rear of Blaney’s truck. The impact sent Blaney spinning like a top off the racing groove and onto the apron. Luckily, all drivers walked away from the crash. The ninth and final caution came when Brian Silas spun on lap 125.
This set up pit stops for the leaders.
Joey Logano had come in for a pit stop a couple of laps before the caution and was caught in the 11th spot on the restart. Austin Dillon, who was driving the No. 20 NTS Motorsports Chevrolet, only took two tires and led the field to the green flag with 35 laps to go. He would lead for 18 laps before tire wear would cause him to lose the lead to Busch.
Logano would battle back to the fifth spot with 29 laps to go and would finish third. Austin Dillon finished right behind Logano but had to fight Tayler Malsam to do it. They were side-by-side for three laps for position and were trading the fourth spot for several laps before Dillon barely got by him when they crossed the finish line.
Matt Crafton steadily kept in the top ten throughout the race. He was last year’s winner and tried to make it a repeat win, but couldn’t get past Busch’s truck that proved to be the strongest on the night.
Despite having trouble in their performances and equipment early on in the race, Jeb Burton and Ron Hornaday, Jr. finished in the top ten.
Kyle Busch would lead 104 laps on the night with Joey Logano leading 41. Again, Austin Dillon led 18 laps, Ryan Blaney got credit for leading two laps and German Quiroga and Jimmy Weller led a lap apiece.
The top ten: Kyle Busch, Matt Crafton, Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, Tayler Malsam, Jeb Burton, German Quiroga, Ron Hornaday, Jr., Joe Nemecheck, and Mason Mingus.
The next NCWTS race will be the North Carolina Education Lottery on Friday, May 16 at 8:30 p.m. ET at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
