The next yellow saw polesitter Chase Briscoe smash the outside wall on lap 137, after Ty Dillon knocked rookie Justin Haley into the side of the No. 29 Ford, sending Briscoe careening out of control and taking him out of contention for the win with heavy damage to the driver’s side of the truck.
Racing resumed with 57 to go and again saw Crafton jet out to a half-second advantage over Gragson, but the driver lurking in the weeds was Sauter, who had worked his way back up to third and laid heavy pressure on Gragson for the runner-up spot for some 25 laps in the closing stages.
As Gragson held Sauter up, Crafton was able to extend his lead, opening up a one second advantage with 40 to go as the pair behind him danced in and out of traffic lap after lap.
While Sauter couldn’t get past Gragson for the second position, the entire field got a reset and a final chance to make up ground after Bayley Currey spun in Turn 2 with 18 laps to go, setting up a chaotic shootout to the finish.
The green flag waved for a 10 lap dash and saw Gragson fire off like a rocket, powering around the outside of Crafton and never looking back en route to a 1.486 second victory over Crafton in the end.
A frustrated Crafton had little good to say after a race that he felt was his to win.
“This really sucks,” said Crafton. “The bottom rubbered up so, so bad and the top doesn’t have the rubber on it … and we would pick it up and get it on our tires and things were just messy.”
“I was on the outside at the beginning of the race, and it worked pretty good, but I thought to myself, ‘I got tight in the middle there at the end … and if he can roll on the top, I’m going to be in trouble.’ But it would’ve been absolutely crazy to pick the outside at Martinsville with 10 to go, so I had to go to the bottom and it just didn’t work out.”
Sauter rallied back to third after his pit road woes, followed by two of Gragson’s Kyle Busch Motorsports teammates, Harrison Burton and Todd Gilliland.
Stewart Friesen finished sixth, with Kaz Grala, Bell, Ben Rhodes and Austin Cindric completing the top 10.
Misfortune struck playoff contender John Hunter Nemechek early on, after he lost brakes and crashed hard into the outside wall in Turn 2 on lap 38.
Nemechek finished 30th and falls to last in the playoff standings, 28 back of the cutoff line with two races remaining in the round.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to action on Nov. 3 at Texas Motor Speedway, with the running of the JAG Metals 350 (8 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM).
Full race results can be viewed on the next page…
