Darrell Wallace Jr. wins at Gateway Motorsports Park
(EDITORS: Updated with quotes and results.)
June 14, 2014
Chris Knight
NASCAR Wire Service
MADISON,
Ill. - In the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series triumphant return to
Gateway Motorsports Park, Darrell Wallace Jr. pulled off a thrilling win
to earn his second career
victory Saturday night in his 29th career start in the Drivin' for
Linemen 200.
Wallace
Jr., a graduate of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program and a NASCAR
Next alum, scored his first win at Martinsville (Virginia) Speedway last
October and he tweeted
on Friday afternoon that he compared the 1.25-mile racetrack to the
legendary Virginia paperclip. A day later, there’s light at the end of
the tunnel for the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver after a frustrating
start to 2014.
The win
didn’t come easy for the Mobile, Alabama native. After dominating the
early stages of the race, Wallace Jr. encountered problems during his
first round of pit stops,
when the jack went down instead of up accidentally, costing the KBM
team valuable track time, especially under green flag conditions.
Down, but not out, Wallace Jr. reassured crew chief Jerry Baxter and his team that they would get back to the front.
He did just that.
“This
Made In America Toyota Tundra was on a roll tonight,” Wallace Jr. said.
“We got into a little trouble the first pit stop, but a little adversity
never hurts anybody.
We come through. I’m so proud of my guys, they worked their tails off.”
On
Saturday afternoon, Haas Racing development driver Cole Custer scored
his first career 21 Means 21 pole in just his third NCWTS start.
Furthermore, the NASCAR Next driver
became the youngest winning pole sitter in NASCAR National Series
history at the age of 16 years old, 4 months and 22 days.
At the
drop of the green flag, Kyle Busch Motorsports’ Darrell Wallace Jr.
grabbed the lead from Custer and led the opening laps of the Drivin for
Linemen 200. Despite two
early race cautions, green flag pit stops began on Lap 57 with Wallace
electing to make his first trip to pit road on Lap 62, when German
Quiroga Jr. inherited the top-spot.
While
much of the leaders continued the cycle of the green flag pit stops, NTS
Motorsports’ Gray Gaulding ran out of fuel while running inside the
top-five, forcing the third
caution of the race.
Meanwhile,
John Hunter Nemechek, who slapped the wall in his opening laps of
practice Friday grabbed the lead when Quiroga pitted. The yellow flag
undoubtedly shuffled the
running order, which put reining Truck Series champion Matt Crafton on
the point for the Lap 73 restart.
A
quick-caution for Ray Black Jr. on Lap 74 allowed the 11 waive-around
trucks from the previous caution to catch the remaining lead lap trucks
with Crafton in command.
On the
restart, however, Nemechek made an impressive move around Crafton to
retake the lead on Lap 78, Nemechek held the lead until Crafton was able
to rundown the teenage
sensation on Lap 122, but just three laps later, Crafton blew the right
front tire slamming his No. 88 Ideal Door / Menards Toyota Tundra into
the Turn 4 wall.
“The tire just popped,” said Crafton, who came into the seventh race of the season as the point’s leader.
With
the No. 88 team done for the night, the attention turned back to NEMCO
Motorsports’ Nemechek, who led the field down pit road for what many
expected to be the final stop
of the night.
A quick
16.6-second stop by the No. 8 bunch kept the newly turned 17-year old
in control of the field with Darrell Wallace Jr., Erik Jones, Timothy
Peters and Quiroga inside
the top-five.
The
green flag flew with 27 Laps remaining with Wallace Jr. making the move
entering Turn 1 on Nemechek, by the time the trucks screamed out of
Turns 3 and 4, three-wide racing
ensued with Nemechek in the middle of a Kyle Busch Motorsports
sandwich, with Erik Jones also pedaling into the mix.
Through
the controlled chaos, Wallace Jr. thundered his No. 54 Toyota Tundra
into the spot ahead of teammate Jones, Nemechek and the Red Horse Racing
duo of Quiroga and Peters.
With
the KBM trucks riding 1-2, the best battle on the racetrack came from
behind between Nemechek and Quiroga. Inside the final 15 circuits, while
battling for that podium
finish, Nemechek lost a left rear tire after contact with the No. 77,
which spun him in Turns 3 and 4 with 13 Laps remaining. Nemechek, after
turning a lot of heads finished 15th, the final truck on the lead lap.
On the
restart with seven laps remaining, the two KBM teammates battled hard,
but a relentless Quiroga, who ran out of fuel during the first
long-green flag run of the night
made it three-wide on the frontstretch with Jones in control.
Jones’
time at the front through would be short lived as a slight bobble sent
him spinning off the front-bumper of Quiroga, yielding the event’s
seventh caution.
The
green flag flew for the final time with four laps remaining with Quiroga
on the bottom and Wallace Jr. on the outside. Despite his best effort,
Quiroga in his first start
at Gateway was unable to fend-off his fellow Toyota teammate, even with
some hard-door slamming racing.
With
momentum, Wallace cleared the No. 77 Net10 Wireless Tundra and sailed to
a 0.329 second victory over Quiroga to notch Kyle Busch Motorsports’
fifth NCWTS triumph of the
season.
“This
place is so cool, so different, here we can actually race and show what
we’re about and have fun with it,” Wallace Jr. said. “From the moment I
got here, I was a little
iffy about it, because I was way off the pace, took some pointers from
(Matt) Crafton and figured it out fairly quickly. We were back and forth
on the setup, but from the drop of the green flag, we didn’t have the
take-off speed, but we had the long-run speed,
but we stayed positive about everything and we came out with the
victory.”
For
Mexico native Quiroga, his career-best finish in the NCWTS came at a
track that reminded him of a track he’s scored multiple wins at in his
home country.
“I wish
it was first and not second," Quiroga said, who dedicated the finish to
Carlos Pardo, who lost his life in a racing accident five years ago in
Mexico. “We were really
strong, we ran out of fuel, we came through the field, but it was good,
my truck was really, really fast. I’m really happy for everyone at Red
Horse Racing. This was good for our comeback for championship points.
Everyone got really excited at the end, we
were defending our position, I saw an opportunity to win my first race
and I didn’t want to let it go, so I drove as hard as everyone else.
We’re getting there, getting closer to a win.”
Behind
Wallace Jr. and Quiroga, Red Horse Racing teammate Timothy Peters was
third followed by Johnny Sauter and Ron Hornaday Jr. to round out the
top-five.
Pole
sitter Custer was sixth followed by Ryan Blaney, John Wes Townley, Chase
Pistone and Tayler Malsam to comprise the remainder of the top-10.
Johnny
Sauter took control of the point’s lead, switching places with his
ThorSport Racing teammate Matt Crafton by 10 points (261 points to 251).
Ron Hornaday Jr. is third
(-13) Timothy Peters fourth (-15) and Ryan Blaney fifth (-17).
Next up
for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is a Thursday night showdown
at Kentucky Speedway for the running of the UNOH 225 on June 26.
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