Johnny Sauter dodged heavy rain, hail and a near collision with Ron Hornaday Jr. to win Sunday’s rain-delayed O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway.
Hornaday was attempting to pass Sauter with 13 laps to go, when he lost it at the entrance to Turn 3, slid up into Sauter and turned both trucks at 45 degree angles. Remarkably, both drivers avoided the wall, and Sauter’s No. 13 ThorSport Chevrolet Silverado held on to prevail over the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevy driven by four-time NCWTS champ Hornaday.
It was Sauter’s second career NCWTS victory, and it came just one day after his 32nd birthday.
All told, it was a wild afternoon in Kansas. FOXNews.com
“That was out of control,” said Sauter. “I’m thinking that dirty bugger Hornaday got me again. That was awesome.”
NASCAR halted the race for 90 minutes when a heavy thunderstorm moved over the area and dropped marble-size hail on the track after 113 laps were completed. When it resumed, Johnny Benson held the lead, while Hornaday ran in sixth after making a lengthy pit stop during the caution to repair his damaged left- rear fender from a multi-truck incident that occurred earlier in the race.
Sauter, with four new tires, passed Benson for the lead with 44 laps remaining. Benson took only two tires during his final stop. Hornaday quickly charged through the field and then passed Brian Ickler for the second spot two laps later. Ickler drove the No.18 truck for Kyle Busch, who won last night’s Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway.
Hornaday, who finished second, was attempting to become the first repeat winner in 10 truck races at Kansas. He won here in 2008. MiamiHerald.com
“My biggest fear when he got into me … after I saved it, straightened it out, and kept going, was, this is either going to be either really bad because the toe will be knocked off, or I’m going to have a flat tire,” Sauter said.
“I took the next two laps and kept taking it easy, thinking I was going to have a flat tire. I thought, if we don’t get a caution we’ve got this race won, but if a caution came out, me and Ron would have both been in trouble because our trucks had so much damage.”
“I saw a couple of sprinkles when I was running second, I said, ‘Hey, it’s starting to mist out here,’ ” said Hornaday, the defending trucks series champion. “And when I got the lead, I was really screaming, ‘Hey, it’s raining out here.’ I was hoping it would (continue to) rain.”
Todd Bodine, running third, thought the Sauter-Hornaday collision was his ticket to victory lane.
“They were too far away from me to see it,” said Bodine, who finished third. “All I heard on the radio was ‘They’re wrecking each other, keep going, keep digging.’ I knew you get those two together racing for the lead, and something is going to happen. They’re both pretty tough competitors.” Kansas City Star
Brian Ickler finished fourth and now has two top-five finishes in both of his starts for Kyle Busch Motorsports and rookie Austin Dillon had his best career finish, sixth. NASCAR.com
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