MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Johnny Sauter cruised to a spot in the Championship 4 with an absolute beatdown of the field during Saturday’s Texas Roadhouse 200 at Martinsville Speedway.
Sauter swept both stages and won the race outright, leading 148 of 200 laps with the No. 21 ISM Connect Chevrolet for his 23rd career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory and his sixth of the season.
The 2016 champion took control of the race at lap 40 when polesitter Todd Gilliland pitted under caution and was scarcely challenged after that.
“This was a lot of fun today,” said Sauter. “We did what we needed to do. Joe (Shear Jr., crew chief) did a lot of work leading up to this race and had a lot of things to try, and then practice rained out, so it made for a long day. We went back to the old faithful setup and it worked, so I’m glad it rained now!
“This final round of the playoffs has been really good to us over the years, and obviously two years ago we won here and then won the title, so hopefully we can repeat that. What a dominant truck today.”
Sauter’s only nervous moment came on a restart with 41 laps left, when Myatt Snider charged to his inside and briefly took the lead before a quick caution for a stack-up back in the pack slowed the pace. Sauter then repassed Snider with an outside sweep on the ensuing restart and led the final 34 laps.
“I felt like I had a good restart, but I’m not sure if he (Snider) would’ve made the corner if he didn’t dive-bomb it in there,” noted Sauter. “I had really good grip on the outside … so I felt almost compelled to take the outside groove, but that leaves (the door) open to get a banzai shot.
“I’m just so proud of everybody at GMS. We’re going to Homestead to race for a championship; that’s what it’s all about.”
Perhaps even more notable, Saturday also marked Sauter’s fourth Truck Series win at Martinsville, putting him alone atop the track’s all-time win list for the division ahead of three-time victors Mike Skinner, Dennis Setzer and Kevin Harvick.
That was a statistic that Sauter didn’t realize until he was told by SPEED SPORT after the race.
“That’s pretty awesome. My wife always tells me that we’ve got four kids, and because of that we need four clocks, so that one day when I keel over each kid can have a clock,” Sauter joked. “That’s the pressure I always get from (wife) Courtney every time we roll in here.
“I consider myself a short track guy; I love short track racing and there’s some stuff I did today that I wouldn’t normally do, driving style-wise,” he added. “Thankfully, all that worked out for us today.”
A torrid battle for second in the closing laps saw Brett Moffitt eventually wrest the runner-up spot from Snider with 13 to go, but Moffitt’s Toyota could do nothing to track down Sauter in the final laps.
Moffitt eventually finished 4.572 seconds adrift of the lead at the checkered flag.
“We didn’t qualify like we wanted to or expected to … so we had to be patiently aggressive. That was our game plan before the race, and thankfully it worked out,” said Moffitt. “We stayed out of trouble and Scott (Zipadelli, crew chief) did a great job adjusting on the truck and telling the guys what to do on pit road to make the truck faster because we weren’t where we needed to be when we started the race.
“It’s Martinsville, so I guess survival is great, but losing another one to Johnny (Sauter) is not.”
Snider hung on to come home third, followed by Ben Rhodes and Kyle Benjamin.
Justin Haley, Noah Gragson, Harrison Burton, Christian Eckes and Timothy Peters completed the top 10.
Gilliland faded to 12th in the final rundown after pacing the first 39 laps.
