Ben Rhodes was able to collect a win during the 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season. However, he had to wait until the playoffs race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to do so. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at how Rhodes’s season went.
Ben scored his first top-five finish of the season at Atlanta by finishing fourth. Kansas almost saw the site of his first ever win, but a blown motor with less than 10 laps remaining in the race resulted in a disappointing finish of 23rd. Since that Kansas race, he was a contender for every race with top five and top 10 finishes until Kentucky, where Rhodes crashed and then, a week later at Eldora, did not finish again.
After the unfortunate two DNF’s, he started on the pole and finished second at the Pocono race. With a few strong runs in the summer months, Rhodes just barely qualified for the playoffs by one position after the Chicagoland race. While it can be intense for others, it was not quite as intense for Rhodes throughout the race.
“I think I stayed calm the whole time, especially with stuff going on,” Rhodes said. “Being calm and relaxed in the truck paid off. I could have taken some really aggressive moves out there to get us further ahead on the restarts because it was definitely a clean air game, but we never took those moves. I’m glad we didn’t, who knows what would have happened.”
He was just as excited being able to compete for the championship.
“Man, I still can’t believe it. They gave me the hat and I’m like, ‘Are you sure this is ours?” he said. “They said we were tied and we had the tiebreaker and I can’t believe it. We struggled ever since we unloaded here. This was our worst performance overall, and it couldn’t have come at a worse week, but they said we’re in and overall it worked out for us. I have to say thank you to everybody that’s involved. Now we have to re-focus and get a lot stronger for the Playoffs because a lot of these guys that are in are already there, and they belong there, and we have to get a little bit stronger because tonight was not one of our best nights.”
Rhodes started off the playoffs strong with a seventh at Loudon and scored his first ever win at Las Vegas by holding off Christopher Bell and advancing into the next round. It was a great feeling for him when the checkered flag flew.
“There was uncontrollable screaming on the radio,” Rhodes said. “I don’t even know. This is the biggest high of my life. This is crazy. I just never thought it would come after so many things went wrong, and now it did and we’re here.”
Unfortunately, he could not keep that momentum going as Rhodes had finishes of 23rd at Talladega, 18th at Fort Worth and a crash at Phoenix, ultimately ending his championship hopes.
The season finale was not any better, as Rhodes finished 19th after starting second. He had one win, six top fives and twelve top 10 finishes along with an average start of 7.8 and an average finish of 12.4 among 203 laps led, along with five DNF’s.
You can keep up to date with Ben Rhodes by following him on Twitter @BenRhodes and on Instagram @BenRhodes.
