Johnny Sauter celebrates in victory lane at the Daytona International Speedway. [Russ Lake Photo]
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Driving for a new team, GMS Racing, Johnny Sauter survived the intensely competitive and wreck-strewn NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season opener at the Daytona International Speedway on Friday evening. The 100-lap race was known as the NextEra Energy Resources 250.
Driving the Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff Chevrolet, Sauter got pushed into the lead on the final lap, winning for the second time at Daytona and giving Chevrolet its first NCWTS win in 17 tries at Daytona.
In total, the Wisconsin driver led five times for 12 laps.
“I knew yesterday we had speed, but I kept preaching we have to be there at the end,” the victor said. “Tonight was crazy. At one point we lost all of our track position, but then I started to drive by everyone. That last restart was very hairy. We lost momentum going into turn one, but then the No. 4 truck (Christopher Bell) started pushing and banging me and I picked up 500 rpms and here we came. I couldn’t be more proud of this group.”
Ryan Truex, who had victory in sight, ended up second in a Toyota. There was no margin of victory as the race ended under the yellow flag.
“It all came down to who could bump draft the best,” said Truex. “You had to be right place at right time, and I wasn’t.”
Third place went to Parker Kligerman in a Ford.
Brandon Brown and Travis Kvapil were fourth and fifth.
Rounding out top-10 were Tyler Young, Ben Rhodes, Daniel Hemric, Scott Lagasse and Matt Crafton.
On the final lap, USAC ace Bell got caught up in a multi-truck accident and he flipped spectacularly 13 times, coming to rest right-side up and climbing from his destroyed Toyota seemingly without injury. However, he was taken to a local hospital for further evaluation.
Ten laps earlier with just about the full field running under a blanket, driver impatience over-flowed and the big one happened at the end of the backstretch, as 17 trucks started to spin and wreck. The wreck triggered a red flag for nearly 28 minutes to clean up the mess.
In total, seven caution flags slowed the race for 29 laps.
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