Kyle Busch, in his No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award Toyota, scored yet another ‘W’ in the Camping World Truck Series Lucas Oil 200, making it four wins in four races this season.
This was Busch’s fourth victory, fourth top-10 finish for the 2014 season, and his fourth victory at Dover International Speedway. Busch achieved his eighth perfect driver rating in the Truck Series as well.
“We had a really good truck,” Busch said. “Eric (Phillips, crew chief) and these guys have done a really good job this year. Last year and maybe a little bit more the year before, we’ve been working on our stuff to make it a little bit faster. All that work’s paying off this year.”
“I think these guys here and everyone back at the shop prepared some good trucks,” Busch continued. “It’s been fun to be up front and lead laps in the Series. A couple of our lead competition guys, the 88 had trouble today and the 29 just came on a little too late. Excited to see Toyota in Victory Lane and the NASCAR Foundation too.”
Busch credits his four for four victory spree on “being focused and in good stuff, believing in it and believing in these guys.” The team that bears his name is first in the Owner Points and Busch is excited to continue to run for that honor.
Busch advised that he was handing the wheel back to Erik Jones for the next few races until he steps back into the race truck at Kentucky.
“I’m really excited now to see Erik Jones get in the car and run some races,” Busch said. “I told him that just because they change the name on the roof, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t end up in Victory Lane. The pressures is on these guys to keep going and keep the Owner’s Championship up in the points.”
While Busch dominated the Monster Mile for most of the race, he was getting some heavy competition from Matt Crafton, that is until Crafton’s tire went down and he hit the wall on Lap 156. The driver of the No. 88 Rip It Energy Fuel/Menards Toyota finished 23rd and fell out of the points lead as a result.
With Crafton out of the race, Ryan Blaney, behind the wheel of the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford came on strong to finish in the runner up position. This was Blaney’s second top-10 finish in two races at Dover and is his third top-10 finish of the season.
Blaney now sits in the seventh spot in the points standings.
“We didn’t start in the best spot, in 14th, but got into the top five fairly quickly,” Blaney said. “We had to work our way to the front from there. They did a great job on pit road all day and had good stops. We gained some spots there a few times.”
“With about 50 or 60 to go, we had a pit stop and had a loose left front wheel,” Blaney continued. “Luckily we caught it before we went back green. We were able to come back and change it and then we had a caution maybe 20 laps after that. I was able to line up sixth and finally got a break. But I don’t think it mattered as nobody was going to catch the 51. He was something else.”
Truck Series veteran Johnny Sauter, driver of the No. 96 Nextant/Curb Records Toyota, finished third. This was Sauter’s third top-10 finish in six races at the Monster Mile.
“For whatever reason, we were a long run truck,” Sauter said. “I didn’t run my fastest lap until Lap 18. Having said that, we knew that we needed to get some speed. We started the race too tight and made some adjustments.”
“I’m just proud of my guys, especially the over the wall guys,” Sauter continued. “They made gains by leaps and bounds on pit stops today. We had a solid day. We weren’t the fastest truck by any means but we were comparable to the leaders on the long run. Solid points day for us and the truck is in one piece, which is easier said than done at a place like Dover.”
Ben Kennedy, behind the wheel of the No. 31 Click It or Ticket Chevrolet, was the highest finishing Rookie of the race. And as such, he readily admitted that he had plenty of lessons learned from the Monster Mile track experience.
“It was pretty good,” Kennedy said. “It was a day of ups and downs for us I guess. We were crazy free in a couple of runs and then got really tight. I’m proud of the whole team because coming from practice we weren’t that great. It was a good day for us and a good day for the Delaware Highway Safety team.”
“Changing track conditions is something I really learned today,” Kennedy continued. “It was pretty drastic with the setup we had. We went from the first half of the run being pretty awesome to the second half of the run being wrecking loose.”
“The shade coming up from the casino as the sun sets over there was a big thing for me. Every time I get behind the wheel I learn and gain confidence. Hopefully, we will be up there in the top five running consistently soon.”
Brandon Jones, driver of the NO. 33 Exide Chevrolet, and Joey Coulter, in the No. 21 Allegiant Chevrolet rounded out the top five in the finishing order.
Peters emerged as the points standings leader by one point over Matt Crafton. The unofficial results from the Lucas Oil 200 are as follows:
POS Car # Driver Make
1 51 Kyle Busch Toyota
2 29 Ryan Blaney Ford
3 98 Johnny Sauter Toyota
4 33 Brandon Jones Chevrolet
5 21 Joey Coulter Chevrolet
6 8 John Hunter Nemechek Toyota
7 31 Ben Kennedy Chevrolet
8 19 Tyler Reddick Ford
9 77 German Quiroga Jr Toyota
10 17 Timothy Peters Toyota
11 30 Ron Hornaday Jr Chevrolet
12 5 John Wes Townley Toyota
13 92 Scott Riggs Ford
14 0 Cole Custer Chevrolet
15 50 T.J. Bell Chevrolet
16 54 Darrell Wallace Jr Toyota
17 2 Tyler Young Chevrolet
18 13 Jeb Burton Toyota
19 63 Justin Jennings Chevrolet
20 10 Jennifer Jo Cobb RAM
21 20 Gray Gaulding Chevrolet
22 32 Ben Rhodes Chevrolet
23 88 Matt Crafton Toyota
24 39 Ryan Sieg Chevrolet
25 99 Bryan Silas Chevrolet
26 35 Mason Mingus Toyota
27 9 Brennan Newberry Chevrolet
28 57 Norm Benning Chevrolet
29 7 Jake Crum Chevrolet
30 8 Jimmy Weller III Chevrolet
31 56 Raymond Terczak Jr Chevrolet
32 42 Charles Lewandoski Chevrolet
33 40 Todd Peck Chevrolet
34 0 Ryan Ellis Chevrolet
35 36 Blake Koch RAM
YAWN!!!