The 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway hosted the ninth race of the 2019 Truck Series season last Friday night and it did not disappoint.
It was quite possibly the most exciting race from the NASCAR weekend. There were comers and goers throughout the race, and you really didn’t know who was going to win until the checkered flag flew.
The race featured 13 cautions, a new track record. It was previously 10. There were 12 lead changes with a margin of victory of .963 seconds. In fact, 37.7 percent of the race was run under caution, while there were only 7.4 green flag laps.
With that in mind, here are this week’s Four Takeaways from the Speedycash.com 400 at Texas.
- Greg Biffle Gets Popular Win – When the race was all said and done, there was quite the social media buzz across the NASCAR universe talking about Biffle’s win. Marcus Lemonis, CEO and Owner of Camping World & Gander Outdoors even chimed in on Twitter stating, “Congrats to @gbiffle on race one of #TheTrip @GanderOutdoors @GanderRV #winner hey @KyleBusch let’s get him in the truck again, nice finish to all.” As if that wasn’t enough, Biffle tweeted his thoughts about the win, “Words can’t express what this felt like. Thanks, @marcuslemonis @GanderOutdoors @NASCAR_Trucks for the support of this great series @KBMteam. #TheTrip.” Lemonis chimed back in response to Biffle and said, “I’m going to see what I can do to help.” It will be interesting to see what he has in mind as it has created a very exciting time in the Truck Series right now.
- ThorSport Racing Continues Season Dominance – If you looked in the top five running order, you would see that at least two ThorSport Trucks finished in the top five, Matt Crafton, who was trying to chase down Biffle, and Grant Enfinger who finished fifth. Although he did not finish in the top-10, he probably would have except for a transmission failure. Rhodes wound up 21st after winning Stage 2. The same can be said for Johnny Sauter who won Stage 1 but finished 13th after being in a wreck. However, the ThorSport team has four of their Trucks sitting in the top six in the points standings currently, with Enfinger continuing and extending his points lead by 37 points. If they keep it up and make it to the Playoffs, the ThorSport team has a really good chance of winning the championship this year despite not having any race wins, aside from Sauter who won at Dover earlier this season.
- Inconsistency Of Calling Cautions – Another week and more inconsistent race calls. A caution came out with about 15 to go Friday night for Austin Wayne Self who stalled on the bottom, which set up a 10-lap restart to the finish. It eventually helped Biffle win the race as he was close on gas, and more than likely wouldn’t have made it if there wasn’t a caution. However, we saw another Truck spun after the restart on the bottom of Turn 4 and no caution flag was flown. Of course, this did happen behind the pack. But when you call a caution for a Truck that is stalled on the bottom but do not call a caution for a Truck that is spinning, that’s really inconsistent. We saw it again in Monday’s FireKeepers Casino 400, when Erik Jones spun in the middle of Turns 1 and 2, got “stuck” and NASCAR threw the caution setting up an overtime finish. Again that’s inconsistent. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I would like to see a little more consistency from NASCAR.
- Not Promoting The Other Two Series – When Fox Sports 1 signed off the air as the Cup Series race ended and the off week started, fans heard Mike Joy say, “We’ll see you in two weeks at Sonoma.” Yes, we will see them in two weeks at Sonoma, but what’s going on in the Xfinity and Truck Series? Did they forget the other two series were racing this week? As much as they talk about the up and coming racers hoping to be future Cup stars, it’s hard to notice these racers if you don’t promote their series. Of course, fans are smart enough to know that the Xfinity and Truck Series are racing while Cup is not, but NASCAR could do a better job of promoting them. It’s easy to sit back and critique every little thing, but the Xfinity and Truck Series are the other top two divisions in NASCAR. And right now, they are putting on better races then the Cup Series. Sure there are some races that are not great but 95% of the time they are more exciting. I’m sure it wasn’t Mike Joy’s intent to ignore the other series, but maybe the next time, please include the Xfinity and Truck Series.
