DOVER, Del. -- Given that NASCAR vehicles do not have fuel gauges, teams manage to do a remarkable job of knowing how much fuel is in their machines. That’s why the end of Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Dover International Speedway was such a surprise.
In a race that needed overtime due to late race incidents, Aric Almirola drove away on a restart while, in his rearview mirror, no fewer than three of his closest competitors ran out of gas. Almirola got a great jump on a green-white-checkered finish and drove to his first career victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
“We had a good truck yesterday,” Almirola said. “As soon as we unloaded we had a really fast truck. It wouldn’t bust out a good lap like Kyle did, but it was really good on a long run. The last couple weekends we’ve outsmarted ourselves and tried things that really didn’t work out for us. So we just went back to basics, doing the things we know how to do and doing them well. It’s a dream come true.”
Busch dominated the day, leading the vast majority of the race's 204 total laps. But, as has often been his downfall in recent years at Dover over all three NASCAR series, Busch’s dominant car was struck down by bad luck. On this day, it came in the form of a lack of fuel. Busch, Todd Bodine and Justin Lofton all found themselves with empty tanks when they hit the gas pedal upon seeing the green flag wave at lap 202 to start the green-white-checkered finish.
“I really thought when I had to restart behind Kyle, I was going to have to race him for the win,” Almirola said. “That would have been a lot of fun. But I'll take it any way I can get it.”
Almirola’s good luck at the end of the race balanced out some bad luck he had earlier on. Almirola had to make a green flag pit stop on lap 80 due to his right front tire coming apart. He was able to guide the truck in with no damage and change the damaged tire, but went back out two laps down.
“To come back from two laps down, fighting hard and getting one lap back, then getting on the lead lap and coming back again, you have to have a phenomenal truck to do what we did today, and I’m not going to take any credit for that,” Almirola said.
Almirola jumped into the points lead with the victory, taking a 27-point cushion over Todd Bodine. The victory came in his 55th career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.
James Buescher finished second after starting the race in 10th. He too recovered from an early mishap, a spin-out that drew the day’s first caution.
“We kind of missed it in qualifying a little bit,” Buescher said. “When the race started, our truck wasn’t like it was in practice yesterday. To come back and finish second, it was pretty tough.”
Lofton finished third in his Dover debut despite his empty tank. He did so with a truck that his team changed up a bit, only to change everything back before the race.
“We unloaded off the truck pretty good,” Lofton said. “In the second practice, we thought we’d make some positive changes and they were really bad. We went back and put the setup we had back in the truck, and did very minimal adjustments throughout the race. It was probably one of the best trucks I’ve driven so far this year.”
Buescher’s teammate Ricky Carmichael finished fourth, his best career finish in a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. It too came with some adversity. Carmichael wrecked in both practice and qualifying and had to start from the back of the field.
“The end result was good,” he said. “Just can’t believe it. The weekend started out horrible. But we got a little bit of luck, and that’s why we call it racing and that’s why we race every lap. You’ve got to get lucky every now and then.”
Almirola’s win continued the 11-year streak of having no repeat winners in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at the Monster Mile.
