Ron Hornaday Jr. led the final 129 laps, including a green-white-checkered finish, to win the
O’Reilly 200 on Saturday night at Memphis Motorsports Park.
Hornaday’s victory in the Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet was his third of the season and boosted him into the points lead, 27 in front of Matt Crafton. It was Hornaday’s 36th career victory in the Craftsman Truck Series, tops all-time.
Hornaday was leading on the 199th lap when a crash started between Ted Musgrave and Willie Allen brought out the ninth caution and eventually a red flag as the track was cleared of debris.
“That was probably the hardest race I’ve run this year, so far. I wanted that trophy real bad,” Hornaday said. “That Elvis trophy is the coolest thing in the world.”
We definitely passed a lot of trucks,” said Crafton, who qualified 16th. “If we could learn to qualify, we’re definitely going to give Ron Hornaday a run for his money.
“We put ourselves back in traffic and beat ourselves up and use tires up trying to get there.”
Johnny Benson, who entered the race as the series points leader, captured the pole with a qualifying speed of 118.229, and Bobby East was next to him on the front row. It was Benson’s third pole of the season.
Darnell’s second-place run was his third consecutive top-five and fifth of the season.
“It was a really good night,” Darnell said. “We qualified well and kept it up front most of the night. We were good on long runs. Ron was better on restarts all night.”
Crafton started 16th and charged to third, passing Crawford for the position on Lap 181 and holding it to the end.
Crawford was fourth and David Starr finished fifth.
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