After qualifying for the Playoffs with his win at Kentucky earlier this season, Ben Rhodes and the Camping World Truck Series No. 41 Thorsport team were looking to compete for their third championship. Unfortunately, Rhodes got caught up in an incident at Talladega which left him eliminated from the Playoffs.
However, NASCAR is a sport like any other where you can still compete even after being eliminated from competing for the championship. Rhodes and company were determined to finish the season strong and hoped to collect more wins. Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway almost saw them do just that.
After race leader Todd Gilliland had fuel issues on the last lap of the Jag Metals 350 and fell off the pace, eventual race winner Justin Haley drove by to pick up the win. But lurking close by was Rhodes who finished second after all the craziness.
“Yeah, we pretty much had to start last after scruffing the wall in qualifying,” Rhodes told MRN Radio. “Disappointed in that, but very proud of how the team has rallied and put this Carolina Nut F150 up in second place. I feel like overall this race was run on track position and managing restarts, and pit stops. The disappointing part for us is I feel like we were even better than where we finished tonight.”
“We just burn the tires up. A lot of people were blocking tonight and you know, blocking was the name of the game it seemed like for everybody, except us. It was just a weird race on how that all played out. Congrats to the 24 getting the win and to Homestead. We’ll continue to do our best to compete for the owner’s championship.”
Rhodes’s second place was his eighth top five of the season.
