The NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series had what some would call a home race this past weekend at Martinsville, where it’s just a little over a two-hour drive for most of the teams. So far this year, it was the largest entry list of the season and we saw six trucks not qualifying for the race. Three drivers withdrew from the race and two teams saw driver changes.
However, that didn’t phase Kyle Busch who completely dominated the race and won the 54th race of his Truck Series career on Saturday afternoon.
So, for the fourth time this season, here’s this week’s four takeaways from the TruNorth Global 250.
- Kyle Busch Dominates – Busch went three for three this past weekend at Martinsville and put a whooping on the field. It was his second career Truck Series win at Martinsville and his first since 2016. He didn’t miss a step winning Stage 1 and finishing third in Stage 2. Oh yeah, he also led 174 laps of 250. Not bad for the 33-year-old who has amassed six wins in total this year already. Cue the song, “All I Do Is Win” by D.J. Khaled.
- Clean Race For Martinsville – Normally, when the Truck Series comes to a track like Martinsville, you expect a lot of beating and banging. Not this time around, as the race was unexpectedly clean for the most part. There were only seven cautions for 50 laps and the race was run under green 28.6 percent, while the yellow was flown 20.0 percent. Last spring, the race saw 16.5 laps under green and 27.2 percent under yellow. This spring was pretty unusual for the trucks as we did not see many yellows.
- Rough Day For Johnny Sauter – While the finishing results show Sauter ninth, he had to earn it. He finished third in Stage 1, but it all went downhill from there. During the stage caution, Sauter went down a cylinder and reported, “it’s a plug wire, I don’t know.” The ThorSport team got the Truck somewhat turned around and Sauter stayed in the top-10 for Stage 2 winding up seventh. Another issue arose, however, as he had a left-rear tire go flat late in the going. Fortunately, Sauter and company rebounded to a hard-fought ninth, but a disappointing ninth considering he won here last fall.
- Raphael Lessard Solid In Truck Debut – Canadian Raphael Lessard made his first Truck Series debut this past weekend, driving the No. 46 Kyle Busch Motorsports entry. The young 17-year-old is labeled as “Canada’s Next Superstar” on his website. The Canadian finished 14th after starting seventh. Lessard is a breakout star on the late model circuit, winning four races in 2016 in the CARS Tour. He also made a couple of ARCA starts for Venturini Motorsports in 2017 and last year, he began his relationship with Kyle Busch as Lessard competed in Busch’s late model and, he still does. If the opportunities line up for Lessard, he’ll be a Truck Series regular in a couple of years. He was just the second Canadian in the field, the other being Stewart Friesen.
