Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
On Sunday during the Nascar Camping World Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway, the truck teams of ThorSport Racing had amazing results. Two of their four drivers ended the race in the top-five. This coming after a tragic fire destroyed and devastated the team race shop earlier in the week.
Cameron Hayley, driver of the No. 13 Cabinets by Hayley Toyota Tundra, finished third in the race. Hayley consistently ran in the top-five all night long. There were a few late cautions towards the end of the race and one of the them even brought out the red flag. He was able to get good restarts after each of the restarts, specifically after they lifted the red flag.
“Our Tundra was really tight all night long and at the end there after that red flag it just came to life,” Hayley quoted. “I’m super happy. I can’t thank Cabinets by Hayley enough and the whole community – Sandusky, Perkins, everybody. They got us out of the fire this week and now we’re here in third place, it’s amazing. I wish we could’ve got him (Duke Thorson, team owner) the win. But, to come from where this team was on Monday to where we are now is just amazing and I just want to thank everyone for that.
“After that red flag things definitely multiplied by about a thousand. I’m sure Cole (Custer) can attribute to that. But, like Cole (Custer) was talking about we thought we were in the driver seat again with four tires there instead of two (tires) but at the end of the race there you needed a 20 or 30 lap run in order to have that be an advantage and we just had short runs there at the end. Our Cabinets by Hayley Tundra kind of came alive there after the red flag and at that point it’s whoever makes the best moves at the right time. William (Byron) made the best moves at the right time and I’m just happy to come home third.”
Hayley says his third place finish helped lift the teams spirits after the fire at the shop. He wishes to carry the momentum into the next race.
“Yeah, you know, obviously as everyone knows it’s been a tough week at ThorSport Racing to say the least,” Hayley added. “I was a part of that first hand. I got the call about 5:30 Monday morning. I was there at 5:30 and we probably spent upwards of 36 hours – both me and the team – cleaning the trucks, getting things ready, working out of a parking lot trying to get to this race and to come out here with a third place finish is not just amazing for me but the organization as a whole. We really came together as a team.”
Ben Rhodes, driver of the No. 41 Alpha Energy Solutions Toyota Tundra, finished the race in fourth pace. He had the quickest truck of the race, however he didn’t have the track position nor have good short run speed, however he fought hard to stay in the in the top-five. He battled hard with William Bryon, Tyler Reddick and Cole Cluster, challenging them for the lead and win in the late stages but just didn’t have enough to get it done.
“Man, that was just really tough,” Rhodes stated. “We really needed to be on the outside to keep our momentum up. That’s what our truck really struggled with on the bottom. It was just tough. Those long runs we had a lot of speed and I felt like we had the fastest truck tonight. Even on some of the earliest restarts I felt like we were really good, but after we sat on the track for that red flag it just didn’t do good for our tires, air pressures went weird and heat cycle didn’t do good for us.
“But, I’m really proud of all of our guys on the Alpha Energy Solutions Toyota Tundra tonight. They have worked their butts off all week after the fire at ThorSport (Racing). We only had two trucks tonight and we only have two trucks for the next race so it’s really hard to try to race for a win and have that in your mind. After Kansas this year we had that wreck and we were kind of playing it safe for the rest of the races, protecting our trucks, being cautious at Charlotte, being cautious at Texas. We had this date circled on our calendar for a long time but unfortunate the circumstances but man, it was a really fun race tonight and I can’t thank these guys enough for all they’ve done for me.”
