Kyle Busch scored his fourth NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series victory of the season on Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. Busch, making his fourth series start of the 2019 season through five races, started fourth on the leaderboard and led 97 of the 147 laps.
“It was a pretty good night for us. I wish it was faster,” said Busch after getting the win. “I thought we were pretty good. Not as good as we wanted to be once we stacked up next to the field. The 24 (Brett Moffitt) was really fast and the 52 (Stewart Friesen) was really fast. They made me work for it. They certainly got my money’s worth tonight.”
Stewart Friesen did everything he could to get around eventual race winner Kyle Busch in the waning laps. When the checkered flag waved, Friesen, who finished stage one in third and fifth in stage two, sat second in the running order. The No. 52 Chevrolet led the field for one circuit on Friday.
“The 24 (Brett Moffitt) was, who I was really worried about and then something happened with him and then the 52 (Stewart Friesen) was really fast and right there on our tailgate the whole finish of that race until about the last five laps,” Busch later said after the race in victory lane. “I don’t know if he just got heated up or what back there. He put up a good fight and about got to me a couple of times there and fortunately I was just able to hold out and keep the Cessna Tundra upfront and keep it out front. Those guys were just able to keep up with us way too much throughout the night, I thought.”
The win on Friday at Texas Motor Speedway marks the 55th career victory in the series for Busch. The win total across all three of NASCAR’s National Series now sits at 202 for the Las Vegas native as he looks to sweep the weekend at the 1.5-mile oval.
Through 149 career Gander Outdoors Truck Series races, Busch has 97 top five and 117 top 10 finishes.
As for second-place finisher Stewart Friesen, he goes into a five-week break with three top five and four top 10 finishes.
Johnny Sauter rounded out the top three finishers in Friday’s Vankor 350K. Sauter, driving the No. 13 ThorSport Racing Ford, led seven laps and sat ninth in stage one and 12th in stage two.
Pole-winner Grant Enfinger and Matt Crafton rounded out the top five.
Tyler Ankrum, Ross Chastain, Tyler Dippel, Brennan Poole and Ben Rhodes rounded out the top 10.
Turn two was very busy as far as race incidents went on Friday. The first victims over there included Angela Ruch and Gus Dean on lap 18. Dean continued while Ruch was done for the evening.
Anthony Alfredo later found himself in an incident over in turn two. Alfredo, piloting the No. 54 Toyota, was done on lap 48 as his truck went around and caught on fire. The field went under the red flag for 15-minutes and 51 seconds while crews cleaned up fluid and attended the damaged No. 54 Toyota.
Korbin Forrister later went around in turn two on lap 102 while the ninth yellow flag came out on lap 116 for Codie Rohrbaugh. Rohrbaugh finished 23rd while Forrister finished 24th as a result.
The first yellow flag came out for a three-truck incident on the frontstretch. The lap three melee involved Todd Gilliland, Ross Chastain and Brennan Poole. All three drivers continued their way despite the on-track incident.
The NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series will take a five-week hiatus. The JEGS 200 at Dover International Speedway will take place at 5:00 p.m. ET. on May 3rd. The 200-lap event will air live on FOX Sports 1 and MRN Radio.
About Me: Brett has been following the sport of NASCAR since the beginning of the 2006 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Since Brett was 13, he has had a passion of chasing a job in sports that not many get the opportunity of doing. He has been in the NASCAR media since the middle of the 2010 season. Since then, he has been a part of many racing podcast shows to improve his talents. He has written for racingonfuel.com and theracingwheel.com. Currently, Brett writes for motorsportsnat.com and TracksideChatter.com. You can find him on twitter @NASCAR_Brett.
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