Coming off his best finish of the year of fourth at Iowa Speedway last week, Ben Rhodes led the way in opening Drivin’ for Lineman 200 practice at Gateway Motorsports Park.
Rhodes was quickest in his No. 41 Alpha Energy Solutions Toyota with a fast lap of 33.152 seconds. The rookie heads into Gateway off one of his strongest runs of the season, and hopes the momentum swings his way to earn him his first career win.
Following behind Rhodes was another pair of rookies in three-time season winner William Byron and last year’s Gateway winner Cole Custer. Byron won the last two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Texas Motor Speedway as well as Iowa, and was second in practice at 33.235 seconds. Custer was third with a 33.535 second lap.
After missing the last two races, Ryan Truex was back on form at Gateway as he wound up fourth in practice with our Daytona winner, Johnny Sauter right behind him.
Rounding out the top-10 were 2015 series champion Erik Jones, Daniel Hemric, Spencer Gallagher, Justin Haley and John Hunter Nemechek.
Practice was slowed twice for incidents during the session. Tyler Reddick, who was 14th in practice, spun, but did not make significant contact with the wall. Later in the session, Rico Abreu, who was 16th, wrecked his primary truck. ThorSport Racing confirmed via Twitter that Abreu made contact with the wall after “something broke” in the truck, and they will now go to a backup.
The Truck Series will be on track for one more practice session later before qualifying, and the race tonight.
