FORT WORTH, Texas – Johnny Sauter’s determination to prevent any other NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase contenders from locking up a spot in the Championship 4 shone through on Friday night, as he won the Striping Technology 350 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Despite a run of 126 laps dominated by front row starters Spencer Gallagher and Daniel Hemric, Sauter captured the lead on the third and final round of pit stops, beating Matt Crafton off pit lane under caution as Gallagher faded from the lead to seventh after struggles with the right rear tire.
Once the race went back green with 18 laps left, Crafton surged to the lead on the bottom of the track as Sauter’s truck struggled to get back up to speed, with the two-time champion desperately seeking a win to assure himself a spot in the final round of the playoffs after struggling with brake issues last time out at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
While Crafton led, Sauter began to rally, taking second from Hemric with five laps left and rapidly closing on Crafton as the laps wound down.
Entering turn three with three laps to go, Sauter charged the high lane while Crafton glued his truck to the bottom, with Sauter’s momentum ultimately propelling him past Crafton and on to his second-consecutive NCWTS victory.
The win was Sauter’s third of the season, third at Texas and 13th of his career, as well as the third in a row for GMS Racing in Truck Series action.
“This is amazing. I can’t thank the Gallagher family enough for giving me this opportunity,” Sauter said. “I tried to give it away there on the last restart. I just could not get going. The splitter was bottoming out over the bumps in one and two. I just had to wait for the pressures to build up a little bit and it took off.
“Matt was content to keep running the bottom,” he added. “I was like ‘Well, I’m going to the top.’ I was pretty successful on the top in three and four all night long. We just had big momentum and now we’ve got big momentum going to Homestead. I should apologize to the fans for that lame burnout, but I’ve got to take this piece to Miami in two weeks (laughs).”
Crafton finished second and leaves Texas one point to the good in the Chase point standings, after entering the race nine marker below the cut line for elimination.
“We were just a little off all night. We got drove in the fence in turn two. The right-rear tail is moved over quite a bit and it just got really free off the corner,” Crafton said. “I was trying to manage, trying to manage and then with four to go I got really free and I was like, oh boy.
“I was hoping Johnny and the 19 (Hemric) would race with each other a lot longer than they did, but Johnny got clear of him and moved on. We needed clean air … and it would run good for a little bit, but eventually the truck would just slowly go away. We fought that all night.”
Hemric came home third after leading 38 laps, followed by his Brad Keselowski Racing teammate Tyler Reddick and Kyle Busch Motorsports’ Daniel Suarez.
Friday’s race marked the first time since the inception of the caution clock that it expired three times in a single race – with triggered yellows coming at laps 39, 82 and 125.
Amid those brief slowdowns, Gallagher led 88 of the event’s 147 laps, dominating the race from the pole and appearing to be a serious threat for his first-career Truck Series victory.
However, his crew struggled on pit stops all night, losing a combined 10 positions after Gallagher entered the service lane with the lead each time the caution flag flew.
The personable 26-year-old ultimately finished seventh after being mired in traffic late in the race, just behind Chase contender William Byron.
Among the other championship hopefuls, Christopher Bell was 11th after contact with Cameron Hayley on the last lap put him into the outside wall, Ben Kennedy was a quiet 13th and Timothy Peters ended up 14th after being penalized for speeding on pit road during his lap 41 pit stop.
The Texas finishes mean that Byron, Bell and Crafton head to next week’s cutoff race at Phoenix Int’l Raceway above the elimination cutoff, while Peters (-1) and Kennedy (-13) head into the desert at risk of being bounced from the playoffs.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to action for their penultimate race of the season, the Lucas Oil 150, on Nov. 11 at Phoenix Int’l Raceway (10 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).
