The NASCAR Gander Outdoor Truck Series headed to the Sin City last weekend for the third race of the 2019 season. While a familiar foe dominated the race, a few others rebounded from a early incident and one race team says they are back.
Without further ado, here is this weeks takeaways from the Strat 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
- Kyle Busch Dominates Truck Race- To no surprise of anyone, Busch returned to victory lane last weekend for the 52nd win of his career and his second consecutive win. He sat on the pole, his 22nd of his career and did not look back. Busch won both stages and led three times for 110 laps. His teammates Harrison Burton finished fifth, while Todd Gilliland wound up seventh. All in all, not a bad night for Kyle Busch Motorsports team.
- Relatively Clean And Quick Race- Normally, when the trucks race, it’s action-packed and filled with a lot of cautions. For the Strat 200, a different story was told as the race was run 11.2 percent under caution, meaning there were only three cautions for 15 laps. Two for stage breaks, one for Sheldon Creed’s incident early on. The rest of the race ran 29.8 percent laps under green. Quite unusual for the Truck Series.
- The No. 88 Team Is Back- No, Dale Jr is not back, but the No. 88 Menards team of Matt Crafton is back after an off 2018 season. He is still winless, but the No. 88 team has a great night at Las Vegas, despite barely just missing an early accident and only collecting small right-rear damage. That did not affect him, however, as Crafton finished eighth in Stage 2 and ultimately wound up third after starting 15th. Crafton went on to tweet this after the race, “Had a great night at the track last night. We had work to do after some early damage and my guys got it done. Fought hard and came away with a P3 and a lot of good momentum for Martinsville. #88isBack.”
- Trucks Off For A Couple Of Weeks – After a few weeks of racing since their Daytona opener in February, the Truck Series will take their first few weeks off starting this weekend. For some, they wish they were still racing, but for others, this could be a good break for them. This schedule, however, has been one of the best in recent years. There were times not too long ago, where the trucks started at Daytona and were off for a good month. The trucks return for on-track action Saturday, March 23 at Martinsville Speedway.
