obvious point. There were 3 women in the field so when he said “Gentlemen, start your engines”, he sort of gave the gals that were driving a slap in the face by omitting them.
The race didn’t get to run for green very long. Narain Karthikeyan got into Johanna Long and took her out on Lap 4. So that meant going to commercials and a restart on Lap 8. Timothy Peters was out in front and although the Bunion had started on the pole, he was advancing to the rear. By lap 17, he’d dropped back to 7th place. He said on the radio that he felt like he had a tire going down. But it was back to commercials once again and when they returned, they were under Caution #2 when the 89 truck blew an engine. This saved the Bunion who was going to head into the pits to change the tires.
When they restarted on Lap 23, Peters was still leading with Hornaday in 2nd as they went into Turn #1. Matt Crafton got by Hornaday on Lap 24 then Hornaday got back by Crafton. These two kept going back and forth for position which made for some interesting viewing. Austin Dillon was running back in 6th place and Schrader was back in 7th. On Lap 33, Hamilton Jr. had to pit because of some battery issues then had further problems when the spare battery didn’t fit. That took him out of contention for any possibility of a win.
By this time, Peters had built up a 4 second lead over 2nd place. Jason White, in the #23 truck was back behind the pit wall with a broken radiator. That pretty much ruined his night. By Lap 44, the Bunion had worked his way up to 8th place after losing a bunch of positions earlier with the first caution. On Lap 48, Hamilton Jr. had returned to the track. Lap 60 started the green flag pit stops and put the Bunion in the lead on Lap 65. Ryan Sieg spun out at the entrance to pit road which surprisingly didn’t bring out a caution. What did bring out a caution was when Aramendia got into Mario Gosselin and Gosselin hit the wall. Needless to say, Mario wasn’t happy as could be seen from him throwing a brake duct hose at Aramendia and his post-wreck interview after he was released from the infield care center. It seems that NA$CAR wasn’t happy with Aramendia either and requested that he, his crew chief, and team owner meet them in the White Elephant after the race.
I’m not sure what it is about Mario Gosselin that so enthralls Motormouth Mikey. Any time there’s a shot of Mario, Motormouth just rambles on about him. Nothing against Mario but if every driver got that sort of attention from the Booth Buffoons in every series, teams would have a much better chance of getting sponsors and exposure and we’d have fewer teams closing their doors.
On Lap 67, Brent Raymer ran out of fuel at the pit road entrance bringing out another caution. At this point, there were only 4 trucks left on the lead lap. How often do we see something like that in Cup or Cup Lite? We don’t because Ms Terry DeBris usually runs out on the track and true to form, after The Bunion had a 5 second lead on Lap 107, Ms Terry DeBris showed up dressed as a rack of barbequed ribs. But unfortunately we fans at home didn’t get to see her. When they restarted on Lap 100, The Bunion still had the lead and Austin Dillon and Timothy Peters were battling for 2 nd. But nobody could catch the Bunion and he took the checkered flag. It was interesting to see him struggle to do a burnout after his win. There wasn’t a whole lot of smoke. Hornaday came home 6th and Schrader finished 10th. I think Mr. Happy needs to put Schrader in that truck a little more often. Maybe then he could get a win or two for KHI.
After the race, I got several e-mails making the
same observation. It seems that when the Truck
Trash shows up, the Truck Series regulars are
racing to see if any of them can finish 2nd. The
same thing we’ve seen happen in Cup Lite is
happening in the Truck Series and taking away
from that series and one of the things that makes
it exciting. Hopefully somebody with half a brain
will solve this problem because it’s bad enough
using the Truck Series as a testing platform for
future changes to the Cup Series but to turn it
into yet another Cup Lite Series will hurt it more
than the other things faux King Brian and his
henchmen have done to it.
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