A caution two laps later, for a spinning Bryce Napier off turn four, would bunch the field back up and allow Suarez and Byron to break away from the field with 33 to go when the green flag returned … but the yellow fever was not yet done. Jordan Anderson spun to bring the yellow flag back out five laps later and set up a 23 lap dash to the finish, and that was what allowed the lead battle to shuffle dramatically.
Byron diamonded the corner perfectly off turn two with 21 to go to grab the lead away from Suarez, but the young gun washed high the next time by in turns three and four and could only watch helplessly as Ben Kennedy drove underneath him and to the point as the field dipped underneath 20 to go.
But Kennedy’s road was far from secure as well. A caution flew with 13 laps to go, when Suarez lost a right rear tire and pounded the wall with his truck to end his night after leading 77 laps.
That set up a six-lap sprint to the finish, in which Kennedy held off every advance Moffitt threw at him en route to a historic first Truck Series win and a virtual guarantee of a Chase Grid berth.
Moffitt came home a career-best second for Red Horse Racing, but was still just shy of his first-career NASCAR national series victory. He also finished third at Pocono last month.
“Clean air was honestly the difference tonight,” Moffitt admitted. “People don’t think of Bristol as an aero-dependent track, but clean air was king tonight. I know we had a faster truck and I think if we could have gotten out in front of him, we could have pulled away, but we just couldn’t get to him to make the move.”
“Second sucks, honestly. It’s great that we were so close, but we come here to win and we want to win every time out. We had enough to get to him … and he slipped up a few times, but he needed one more mistake and I think we would have had a shot at it. All in all it was a good day for our Toyota Tundra and can’t thank Tom DeLoach and everyone at Red Horse for the truck they brought and I hope to get back and get (a win) next week.”
Daniel Hemric rallied from a crash in first practice to post a third-place finish and extend his margin over the Chase Grid cutoff to 39 points.
Byron faded to fourth at the checkered flag, followed by Johnny Sauter.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to action on Saturday, Aug. 27 with the Drivin’ for Linemen 200 from Michigan International Speedway.
Audio with race winner Ben Kennedy:
Audio with runner-up Brett Moffitt:
Audio with third-place Daniel Hemric: