Germain Racing veteran Todd Bodine drove to his second career Kentucky Speedway victory and first in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series by taking the “Built Ford Tough 225 presented by the Greater Cincinnati Ford Dealers” title tonight.
The current NCWTS championship leader started 14th, rebounded from a Lap 81 solo spin in Turn 4 while battling Kyle Busch for the lead and clawed his way back to lead the closing 14 laps while conserving fuel.
His No. 30 truck crossed the finish line a comfortable 5.630 seconds ahead of Johnny Sauter in the No. 13 ThorSport Racing machine. Aric Almirola took third in the No. 51 Billy Ballew Motorsports truck, Jason White placed fourth in the No. 23 SS Green Light Racing Ford F-150 and Ricky Carmichael rounded out the top five in the No. 4 Turner Motorsports machine.
“We didn’t get into the fence with the spin, so our misfortune became our fortune tonight. Spinning out was what gave us the fuel to get to the end because we didn’t get into the fence. The guys did a great job fixing the truck and everything fell the way we needed it. The race went green the whole way and everybody else had to pit under green.
“You never give up. We had a good enough truck to get through the field and pass those guys. I started pedaling with about 20 to go to save fuel and we had enough to get to the end,” Bodine said.
He recorded his first Kentucky Speedway victory in equally dramatic fashion in the closest of 10 Nationwide Series races at the track by fending off a spinning Greg Biffle at the finish line by .036 of a second on June 16, 2002.
Bodine peels off his fourth NCWTS victory of the season and third in his past five starts. He owns a total of 13 top-five and 15 top-10 finishes through 18 events. He will hold a 261-point championship lead over Almirola, who took his seventh top-five and 14th top-10 of the season tonight.
Sauter ground out his second straight and third top-five finish in his past four outings. He will roll to the series Sept. 18 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with nine top-five and 10 top-10 finishes.
“The guys made a great call to bring me down (pit road) to get gas and tires there (on Lap 92). We kind of had a hunch we would be going green the rest of the way there. I argued with them and they made the right call. We had a fourth-, fifth-place truck the all night and we got second out of it. We just have to keep going on to our next race and I think I am pretty damn good there so I may win that race,” he said.
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 30 Todd Bodine Toyota 2 13 Johnny Sauter Chevrolet 3 51 Aric Almirola Toyota 4 23 Jason White Ford 5 4 Ricky Carmichael Chevrolet 6 17 Timothy Peters Toyota 7 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 8 39 Ryan Sieg Chevrolet 9 3 Austin Dillon * Chevrolet 10 88 Matt Crafton Chevrolet 11 7 Justin Lofton * Toyota 12 60 Stacy Compton Chevrolet 13 5 Mike Skinner Toyota 14 181 David Starr Toyota 15 192 Dennis Setzer Chevrolet 16 12 Mario Gosselin Chevrolet 17 85 Brent Raymer Ford 18 90 Donny Lia Toyota 19 2 Shelby Howard Chevrolet 20 177 Miguel Paludo Toyota 21 244 Will Kimmel III Ford 22 31 James Buescher Chevrolet 23 10 Jennifer Jo Cobb * Ford 24 46 Clay Greenfield Dodge 25 41 Steve Park Toyota 26 6 Carl Long Chevrolet 27 172 John Jackson Chevrolet 28 47 Jeffrey Earnhardt Chevrolet 29 33 Ron Hornaday Chevrolet 30 1 Chris Lafferty Dodge 31 57 Norm Benning Chevrolet 32 182 Paddy Rodenbeck Chevrolet 33 187 Chris Jones Chevrolet 34 93 Mike Garvey Chevrolet 35 7 Butch Miller Dodge 36 95 Tim Andrews Dodge
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