Which is it truckseries.com? One of your reports says...
For Dodge driver and defending Ohio 250 race winner, Dennis Setzer, the scenery through his windshield was looking very familiar when took the lead on lap 72. Setzer maintained a solid lead for several laps before an impatient second place driver, David Starr, punted him in the rear left side corner of the No. 18 Dodge. Setzer showed off his stellar driving skills by keeping the spinning Dodge Ram off of the wall and away from all other competitors.
Another report says...
Being in the back half of the field, David Starr used patience to work his way back up to the front, while being reminded to save as much fuel as possible. By lap 77, all 36 trucks had made their one scheduled pit stop, putting the No. 11 PIT Corporate Training Toyota Tundra in the second position.A quick caution came out on lap 81 as Starr made slight contact with the leader, which relinquished the lead to the Houston, Texas native.
You can't have it both ways. Patient or impatient?
Whatever! Back to my man Setzer.
After receiving four fresh tires Setzer returned to the track in 30th position and was on a mission. In just 84 laps he raced his way back into the sixth position. It was under the 11th caution of the day that Setzer radioed in saying, “I have smoke in my cockpit.”
Immediately, following the restart it appeared Setzer’s engine expired when a cloud of smoke bellowed from the rear. After pulling the No. 18 truck behind the wall it was determined a lower radiator hose busted draining out all the water out which resulted in a blown engine. Setzer finished in 34th position and dropped to 12th in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver point standings.
CONCORD, N.C. -- It took Matt Crafton 178 starts to snare his first Craftsman Truck Series victory. It took about 35-crash filled laps at Lowe's Motor Speedway to set the unlikely win in motion.
Crafton took advantage of the mistakes and ill behavior of others to drive his Menard's Chevrolet Silverado to victory in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. Crafton's victory was his first in 177 NCTS starts, the longest stretch any driver has gone before winning his first race in the series.
Crafton held off Chad McCumbee in a green-white-checkered finish to score his historic win in a wild night of racing.
"Finally, we can shut them up," Crafton said. "Now they can say, 'When's the next one coming?
With the win Crafton moved up from seventh to fourth in the points race.
1. Ron Hornaday 874 Leader
2, Rick Crawford 865 -5
3. Todd Bodine 836 -38
4. Matt Crafton 829 -45
5. Dennis Setzer 817 -57
A fierce battle for second ended with Germain Racing's Todd Bodine third in the point standings, spinning points leader Ron Hornaday just past the start-finish line at the entrance to Turn 1. An angry Hornaday limped home 23rd and took umbrage with Bodine, who finished 12th after being penalized for rough driving.
"He just flat tried to kill me," Hornaday said. "You don't spin somebody out on the straightaway. Life is too short to have an #### like that."
Bodine said he didn't mean to cause Hornaday to wreck.
"I was just trying to help him," Bodine said. "And now I look like a goat."
McCumbee was followed by Brendan Gaughan who finished third.
Erik Darnell was leading late in the race but spun his tires in the night's second-to-last restart, recovering to finish fourth. Rick Crawford finished fifth. Hornaday leads the series points race, by five over Crawford.
Dennis Setzer finished seventh and slipped to fifth in the points behind Crafton.
After scoring an emotional victory at Martinsville, Dodge Driver Dennis Setzer and crew went west to Kansas with high hopes of capitalizing on the team’s momentum.
Setzer made his way to the front of the pack, climbing as high as fourth position before disaster struck. On lap 73 as Setzer was coming out of turn one he was unable to miss a competitor who spun directly in front of his racing line. Crew Chief Marcus Richmond jumped into action on the radio giving each crew member a job as they went over the wall. “Get a bat, a hammer, lots of bearbond and duct tape,” said Richmond in a hurry. “Make sure you get the grill pulled back out so it does not over heat.” The Dodge Racing Team repaired the substantial front end damage and Setzer returned to the track still on the lead lap.
As the No. 18 Dodge headed into turn four on lap 113 the right front tire blew sending Setzer hard into the turn four wall. The extensive damage forced the team to retire from the event, where they finished in the 25th position.
Dennis Setzer, usually the optimist, didn't mind having to wait to back up his Martinsville win of a month ago. It's nice to get back in the truck while you're hot, but with the series having its longest break of the season, it's OK to carry that "champion" label for a while.
"It's not so bad to have that layover if you just had a good race," the Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia driver said.
But there are layovers and then there are sabbaticals. Sprint Cup has three weeks off all season; the Craftsman Truck Series just had three weeks off in a row. Teams found opportunities to test, take time off, rinse and repeat. To say they were eager to get going with Saturday evening's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 was an understatement -- especially with two more off weeks looming after Kansas.
Setzer failed to finish Saturday night after an accident on lap 126 resulted in his being credited with a 25th place finish. However, the spot was good enough to maintain his 4th place position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points standings.
A tangle on a late-race restart with second-place driver Ron Hornaday sent Mark Martin sliding through the grass and opened the door for Mike Skinner just enough to allow the 1995 Craftsman Truck Series champion to slide through and claim the lead. Skinner made a clean restart with two laps remaining and was able to hold off Hornaday to take the 20th win of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career. A native of nearby Ontario, California, Skinner becomes the first home state driver to score a Truck Series victory at California Speedway. "I am going to make sure I find my teammate Tyler Walker tonight and pick up some of that 360 OTC," Skinner joked in victory lane. "We're going to go back tonight and celebrate, so we may need some hangover relief in the morning!"
Mike Skinner
While Skinner was all smiles after the race, he knew exactly where he needed to be in the final laps in order to put his No. 5 Toyota Tundra Toyota in the winner's circle.
"I knew my best chance to win the race was going to be the restart," Skinner said. "If they got together, or even if they didn't, I knew the restart was it. If they went down into one side-by-side, I was going to get a good run on them down the frontstretch and slide down on the inside in turns one and two. My truck was great down there all night long. But they ended up getting together and I drove hard until I heard the spotter call for the caution.
"I was ahead of Hornaday and I knew when they went back to the scoring loop we'd be the leader. But it wasn't over, I had the King of Restarts Ron Hornaday on my back bumper. I had to be smooth. I could have held it wide open in one and two on those last two laps but I just barely burped it. Once I got to the backstretch and I was leading, I knew we had enough horsepower under the hood of our Toyota to hold him off."
Mike Skinner
Martin was pragmatic in defeat. The No. 21 Bad Boy Mowers Ford led the race three times for a total of 45 laps and seemed to have victory within his grasp until the restart with four laps remaining.
I don't know what happened," Martin said. "All of a sudden the motor revved up and the wheels started spinning and I got behind on the steering. That was a lot of fun. It was awesome, but (NASCAR) has got to get their cautions there at the end."
Two-time series champion and fellow California native Hornaday was regretful about the contact with Martin, but the driver of Kevin Harvick's No. 33 AES HR Solutions Chevrolet said he had no other option. "I knew what Mark was doing," Hornaday said. "He slowed it down just enough so that I would have to get off the gas and flood the carburetor with fuel.
But, I drag the brake on the restarts so I don't spin the tires. When he slowed down, I got up under him and the bumpers didn't line up. If they did, all I would have done is shoved him down the straightaway. But it lifted the tires off the ground and he lost it.
Mark Martin
I feel bad about it because Mark doesn't race me that way and I don't race him that way. In all my years racing with Mark, that may be the first time we've ever gotten together."
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Mike Skinner
Mike Skinner
Mark Martin
