Byron Steals Truck Series Win at Texas

William Byron, like much of the field during Friday night’s Rattlesnake 400 at Texas Motor Speedway, was chasing Matt Crafton – till the final stages.

Crafton had dominated much of the night at Texas leading a race high 133 laps and appeared to be on his way to his third consecutive Truck Series win until five laps to go, when Byron was able to work his No.9 Liberty University Toyota past Crafton’s No.88 for the lead. Byron then had to hold off a hard charging Rico Abreu, who hit the wall with two laps to go to allow Byron to claim his second victory of the season.

Byron’s win catapulted him to third in the standings just 23 points behind leader Crafton, who finished second 2.1 seconds back. Byron discussed the move post race that allowed him to get around Crafton for the win.

“I found the top earlier in the race and it didn’t work very well lap 15 to 20 in the run”, Byron said. “Once I could get laps on the tires – it’s all about heart and you have to want it and my team wants it and I see that every day. We have a Vietnam Veteran here today with Liberty University and it’s really cool to have their support and have a fast Toyota Tundra.”

Meanwhile Crafton lamented about the one that got away.

“If I could have done it any differently, I would have”, Crafton said. “We just lost all drive off the corner for whatever reason there. We ran so hard at the beginning of that run that it had zero drive off. It says a lot about this team. If you look at the right side of this Tundra and how beat up this thing is, we led the most laps and should of, could of won this race. It’s all about these guys and never giving up.”

Pole sitter Johnny Sauter would finish third followed by Ben Kennedy and Tyler Reddick.

Timothy Peters finished sixth followed by John Hunter Nemechek, German Quiroga, Abreu, and Daniel Hemric.