Photo Credit: Gary Buchanan
On Friday afternoon at Dover International Speedway, Tyler Reddick would tame the monster mile and made the pass on Erik Jones late in the going to snatch up his second victory of the 2015 season.
“We just took our time and was patience,” he commented. “It was hard to be patience, but we could’ve easily wadded it up. I took care of my truck all day, and were able to end the day in victor lane.”
Within the final 30 laps, the caution flew for Timothy Peters hitting the wall due to a flat tire while running in the third spot. The leaders used the opportunity to come down pit road, with Jones taking two tires while the rest took four. Jones was able to lead for a chunk after the late-race restart, but Reddick’s tires lasted and gave him the advantage at the end.
Daniel Suarez was able to get by Jones in the last four laps to get a second place finish in his first year of truck competition.
“It was pretty strong,” Suarez commented. “I felt like I was strong enough to finish in victory lane but some thing that was important was traffic, it was track position. It was difficult to pass in traffic. We had a little bit of bad luck in traffic – lost some ground to the 19 and myself in traffic. But overall, I want to thank Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch Motorsports for the good trucks.”
Jones would finish third, watching another victory slip away in the closing laps for the third straight race in a row.
“We got so free at the end I couldn’t hang on to it,” he commented. “Feel terrible for these guys. Doing all I could – just too bad. We had a good tundra, good points day and we’ll keep moving on, bringing fast trucks. We’ll keep bringing good trucks and growing as a team.”
Daniel Hemric would finish fourth for his best career finish, ahead of defending series champion Matt Crafton. Crafton now holds an 11 point lead over Reddick.
Ben Kennedy finished sixth, followed by Ryan Blaney, Brandon Jones, Johnny Sauter and Tyler Young as only nine trucks finished on the lead lap.
Many drivers would run into problems throughout the event including Cameron Hayley, who had a top-10 run going till running into motor issues. Jesse Little was hopeful for a strong run in his debut, but found himself out of the race early due to contact with the wall. In total, only 19 trucks were running at the finish.
