The four ThorSport Tundras led Toyota in the LiftKits4Less.com 200 at Darlington Raceway on Friday evening. Ben Rhodes came home second and he was followed to the line by his teammates Matt Crafton (fourth), Grant Enfinger (fifth) and Johnny Sauter (sixth).
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Darlington Raceway
Race 8 of 23 – 147 Laps, 200.1 Miles
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Sheldon Creed*
2nd, BEN RHODES
3rd, Carson Hocevar*
4th, MATT CRAFTON
5th, GRANT ENFINGER
6th, JOHNNY SAUTER
8th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
13th, AUSTIN HILL
18th, DANNY BOHN
23rd, COREY HEIM
25th, STEWART FRIESEN
27th, CHANDLER SMITH
29th, SPENCER DAVIS
33rd, AKNORI OGATA
35th, DEREK KRAUS
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
BEN RHODES, No. 99 Bombardier Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
Can you talk us through the final restart?
“I was kind of expecting that. It’s one of those notorious things that’s done and we saw it on the chat that they were going to try to run us low and that’s what happened. I saw it going into the corner that they were going to push low so I tried to work our way back up to give us some more line so we could be side-by-side coming off two, but got really loose and luckily we saved it, but it was an up and down night. I had a lot of fun. I love this place, but we had two flat right-rear tires and an issue with the left-rear. We pitted a bunch of times and had to go to the tail-end of the field multiple times. We set ourself up for the end there with our Bombardier Tundra to go for a long run with low pressures. Then low and behold, red flags and caution after caution after caution. What do you do? He (Sheldon Creed) had seven lap newer tires and some help on the restart. I guess conditions were perfect for him, but I’m not going to pout about it. I’m driving a race car, I’m happy, I’m at Darlington – one of the most awesome race tracks on our schedule. It stinks that we couldn’t get the bonus, but I really appreciate Camping World for all their support in the series and of course my awesome team, ThorSport Racing has given me an awesome truck. We’ve been making really big gains on our mile-and-a-half program and it showed tonight. I think we ran some of the fastest laps tonight when we had clean air and we weren’t going flat with right-rear tires. Oh well, we’ll go on to CoTA (Circuit of the Americas) and we’re going to win that one.”
MATT CRAFTON, No. 88 Ideal Door/Menards Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
What are your thoughts after so many restarts late in the race?
“It’s all about these guys, just never giving up and they keep working on this Menards Toyota Tundra. It sure sucks to come home fourth, but I know we had a really, really good short run truck and all those yellows were biting us at the end. We had some tires on it too. Definitely needed a little bit more racing right there at the end. It was like an endure race right there.”
JOHNNY SAUTER, No. 13 Vivitar/RealTree Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
How was your race overall tonight?
“Just kind of an up and down day for our Vivitar Toyota. Guys did a great job. Avoiding that big wreck was pretty beneficial to us, but at the end there, if I just could have cleared the 99 (Ben Rhodes), I was ever so close, but that’s a teammate so you want to give them some room or as much room as you think you can. If I could have got second there, who knows. I just could not fire off tonight. Just too tight through three and four. Was pretty much tight there all night long. Really, really good in one and two. Last week we were spinning out and this week we were too tight so maybe we can get somewhere in the middle.”
Toyota Racing PR
