TALLADEGA, Ala. — After a eight yellow flags and two reds, Saturday afternoon’s Love’s RV Stop 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race came down to an overtime finish.
Former series champion Brett Moffitt, in his first drive for Front Row Motorsports, prevailed during a wild two-lap dash to the checkered flag for his first series victory in three years.
Fellow Ford driver Ben Rhodes pushed Moffitt to the finish and finished. .089 seconds behind in second.
It was Moffitt’s 13th career victory.
“It’s pretty awesome,” said Moffitt, who is a regular in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. “I struggled at superspeedways in the past and dreaded coming to them. This was a pressure off situation that Front Row gave me to come here and try to help a teammate. That didn’t work out too well, but to come here and have a shot at a win and to do it is pretty amazing. It reminds me of the good old days.”
Rhodes was the best-finishing playoff driver aboard the ThorSport No. 99.
“Congrats to Brett Moffitt. We worked really well together, but I wish it was me,” Rhodes said. “We needed that to get into the Phoenix Championship 4, but either way we gave ourselves a shot today. We capitalized on everything we could and second at Talladega is really hard to do and we’ve done it two years in a row. I think that speaks volumes about ThorSport Racing , this Campers Inn Ford F-150 and I’m just glad we maximized it, we were just one spot short.”
Dean Thompson finished third in a Toyota. It tied his career-best finish.
“It was awesome,” Thompson said. “TRICON brought a really fast CST Industrial Tundra. We qualified fast but I had an issue, so we went to the back and we persevered. We never looked back and finished p3. Not bad, but wish we were two spots better though.”
Chandler Smith, who returned to the series in a substitute role for WAR/Rackley and series point leader Corey Heim, rounded out the top five.
The race was sent into overtime when a 14-truck crash occurred following a restart with three laps remaining when Nick Sanchez and Matt Crafton crossed paths.
Following the race, there was an incident in the garage area between the 47-year old former series champion Matt Crafton and the 22-year old rookie-of-the-year Sanchez that left Sanchez’s face bloodied. NASCAR is investigating the situation.
As a result of the overtime finish the race ran 99 laps instead of the scheduled 94 circuits. There were 23 lead changes among 11 drivers.
Daniel Dye, Nick Sanchez, Hailie Deegan, Parker Kligerman and Lawless Allen completed the top 10.
Stewart Friesen, who exited his No. 52 truck under his own power, was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation after a crash on lap 39.
The final race in the round of 8 in the Truck Series Playoffs comes in two weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway.