Ty Dillon

For Ty Dillon to win his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, he had to do what no one else could do on Friday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway – catch Kyle Busch.

Proving that nothing was going to keep the third-generation rookie driver from his first NASCAR victory, Dillon rallied from nearly one second down to catch Busch and make the pass for the lead with six laps to go to collect his first NASCAR checkered flag in his 17th truck series start and give himself a much need boost in the championship points standings.

Busch held on for a runner-up finish, followed by James Buescher, Parker Kligerman and Aric Almirola.

Dillon’s victory was the perfect remedy to take the bad taste out of a disappointing 21st-place place finish last week at Bristol after Dillon ran out of gas in the closing laps.

“I’m so happy and so excited, and I finally did it, I won a NASCAR race,” said Dillon. “My whole life has revolved around NASCAR and RCR and our team. My whole dream was just to win a race in NASCAR and eventually maybe one day become a champion. I accomplished one of my goals tonight; it just feels so great.

"I'm just so happy for how hard we've worked. It's our rookie year, and we're battling for the championship. My team doesn't give up.”

It  was truly a team effort – and a family effort – with Dillon seeking the advice of his brother Austin, father Mike Dillon and his grandfather and car owner Richard Childress on how to get around the difficult 1.5-mile quad oval he had never raced on before.

“I couldn’t be more prouder than what he accomplished tonight,” said Childress. “To watch him race, and watch how he kept searching for the groove and moving around…he looked like he was a pro out there.”

For Kyle Busch, making his first truck series start in nearly a year, Friday night’s race was definitely the one that got away.

Busch had more than just the truck to beat – he flat out stomped on the field for nearly the entire race, leading eight times for a race-high 75 laps, but a late caution flag with 25 laps go wiped out Busch’s lead and seemed to give the leaders some hope of maybe catching Busch on a restart.

Thanks to winning the pole position, Dillon took full advantage of having the first stall on pit road to beat Busch out of the pits and into the lead on lap 110.

On the restart, Busch managed to side-draft Dillon on the inside line and powered past into the lead again, eventually opening up a one-second cushion and seemingly on his way to an easy victory.
Dillon didn’t see it that way.

Chipping away at Busch’s lead, Dillon finally closed the gap and tracked down Busch as they came through turn two with six laps to go. Busch drifted high, making contact with the wall, giving Dillon clean air to move out to a half-straightaway lead.

Busch continued to struggle in the closing laps, brushing the wall several times before gathering it back up and soldiering to the finish line nearly three-and-a-half seconds behind Dillon.

It was not the way Busch wanting to finish out his return to the truck series, nearly a year after an on-track incident with Ron Hornaday at Texas Motor Speedway led to a one-race suspension from NASCAR.

“They were just a better truck; they had a lot better handle on the bottom of the race track than we did, especially throughout the longer runs,” Busch said. “Then when it’s time to race, a guy catches you and you’ve got to go up to the top, and you try to push and you get sideways and get into the fence. There’s no room to catch it up there. It was all I could do to try to push as hard as I could; I didn’t have anything to hold onto.

“We’ve run the same thing for three years and got beat by same truck for three years. It gets a little old. It’s like Groundhog Day today.”

Rookie Kyle Larson continued to impress with a career-best sixth-place finish in his second truck series start. Joey Coulter, Nelson Piquet, Jr., Matt Crafton and Kurt Busch rounded out the top ten.

Series points leader Timothy Peters came home 13th and lost 11 points to Buescher, who now trails by just six points. Dillon also made up ground and now trails Peters by nine points.

Results

FIN	ST	CAR	DRIVER	MAKE	SPONSOR	PTS/BNS	LAPS	STATUS
1	1	3	Ty Dillon *	Chevrolet	Bass Pro Shops / NRA	47/4	130	Running
2	4	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	Dollar General	0	130	Running
3	3	31	James Buescher	Chevrolet	Central Wire	42/1	130	Running
4	9	7	Parker Kligerman	Toyota	Toyota / Red Horse Racing	41/1	130	Running
5	13	5	Aric Almirola	Ford	Jordan Truck Sales / Courtesy Ford	0	130	Running
6	17	4	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	Chip Ganassi Racing Teams	38/0	130	Running
7	14	22	Joey Coulter	Chevrolet	Armour	38/1	130	Running
8	5	30	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Chevrolet	Drink B	36/0	130	Running
9	10	88	Matt Crafton	Toyota	Roto-Rooter / Menards	35/0	130	Running
10	15	51	Kurt Busch	Chevrolet	Bill Holt Chevrolet	0	130	Running
11	12	29	Ryan Blaney	Ram	Cooper Standard	33/0	130	Running
12	6	13	Johnny Sauter	Toyota	Hot Honeys / Curb Records	32/0	130	Running
13	8	17	Timothy Peters	Toyota	Toyota / Red Horse Racing	31/0	130	Running
14	20	6	Justin Lofton	Chevrolet	Lofton Cattle	31/1	130	Running
15	18	33	Cale Gale *	Chevrolet	Ruud	30/1	130	Running
16	7	32	Miguel Paludo	Chevrolet	Duroline Brakes	28/0	130	Running
17	23	39	Ryan Sieg	Chevrolet	Pull A Part Used Auto Parts	27/0	130	Running
18	24	81	David Starr	Toyota	AdvoCare	26/0	130	Running
19	22	09	John Wes Townley *	Toyota	Zaxby's	25/0	129	Running
20	16	08	Ross Chastain *	Toyota	Melon 1 / Georgia Watermelon Association	24/0	129	Running
21	21	11	Todd Bodine	Toyota	Toyota Care	23/0	129	Running
22	30	8	Max Gresham *	Chevrolet	Made in USA / BugBand.net	22/0	129	Running
23	29	98	Dakoda Armstrong *	Toyota	EverFi.com	21/0	128	Running
24	28	99	Bryan Silas *	Ford	Rockingham Speedway	20/0	127	Running
25	26	92	Chad McCumbee	Chevrolet	FleetHQ.com / BTS Tire & Auto Service / QMI	19/0	127	Running
26	33	84	Chris Fontaine	Chevrolet	Glenden Enterprises	18/0	126	Running
27	31	275	Caleb Holman *	Chevrolet	Food Country USA / Sunset Farm Foods	17/0	74	Engine
28	2	2	Tim George Jr.	Chevrolet	Applebee's	16/0	63	Accident
29	11	23	Jason White	Ford	GunBroker.com	15/0	45	Accident
30	19	9	Ron Hornaday	Chevrolet	AM-FM Energy / Anderson's Maple Syrup	14/0	43	Accident
31	35	93	Chris Jones	Chevrolet	RSS Racing	13/0	25	Transmission
32	25	07	Johnny Chapman	Toyota	Wear Your Gear / www.Bobber .info	12/0	17	Radiator
33	27	174	Scott Riggs	Chevrolet	Koma Unwind Relaxation Drink	0	11	Ignition
34	34	27	Stephen Leicht	Chevrolet	Boggy Creek Air Boat Rides	0	4	Engine
35	32	0	Blake Koch	Ford	RameyCars.com / Driven2Honor.org	0	2	Over Heating
36	36	38	Dennis Setzer	Chevrolet	RSS Racing	8/0	2	Rear Gear