Wallace wins Martinsville Truck race

Driving a No. 34 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota painted and numbered as a tribute to NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Wendell Scott — and with Scott's family in attendance at Martinsville Speedway — polesitter Darrell Wallace Jr. held off Timothy Peters to win Saturday's Kroger 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.

Last year at Martinsville, driving the No. 54 KBM Tundra, Wallace became the first African-American driver to win a race in one of NASCAR's top three touring series since Scott accomplished the feat in what is now the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series on Dec. 1, 1963 at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida.

Though his number was changed to 34 on Saturday, in honor of Scott's traditional car number, the result was the same for Wallace, who grabbed the lead from Johnny Sauter in heavy traffic on Lap 188 of 200, moments before the 11th caution slowed the race.

Wallace pulled away after a restart with six laps left, beating Peters to the finish line by .495 seconds. Peters had bumped Sauter out of the way in the closing laps, also opening the door for reigning series champion Matt Crafton, who came home third and extended his series lead to 18 points over fifth-place finisher Ryan Blaney.

"I wasn't worried about anybody, honestly," Wallace said. "They kept telling me where everybody was, and I said I didn't care. It's our weekend and we're going to come out and take this (grandfather) clock (trophy) home with us and we just did that.

"That was so fun. Martinsville is my favorite place to come to. Without the support of NASCAR and Toyota… the whole Wendell Scott family is here and this is a special moment, just a perfect weekend for us. It's a true honor to have Wendell Scott on our Toyota Tundra and to be able to put it in Victory Lane. I know he (Scott) just said up there, 'Hell yeah.' This is cool."

Wallace said Saturday's win surpassed his first victory in the series at Martinsville a year ago.

"It means a lot — I know I had a guardian angel looking over me this weekend," said Wallace, who took over third place in the series standings, 22 points behind Crafton. "To be able to put it in Victory Lane, you couldn't ask for a better weekend. You thought last year was special, but this definitely beats it."

Upset with what he deemed roughhouse tactics from Peters, Sauter attempt to confront the runner-up on pit road after the race, but NASCAR officials and crew members kept the drivers apart.

"It's Martinsville," Peters said. "If you're going to dish it out, you're going to need to be able to take it. Did I mean to run into him? Yeah. I'm not going to deny that — maybe not as hard.

"But it is what it is. I don't want to waste too much of my breath on that. We'll just focus on how well we ran today…"

Wallace led 97 of the 200 laps. Second was the pace car, which was out front for a record 71 laps during a race that featured more rookies than veterans and six drivers competing in the series for the first time.

Erik Jones ran fourth, followed by Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Sauter, Matt Tifft (a UNC-Charlotte freshman making his first start) Alex Guenette and German Quiroga, whose ill-fated attempt to take the lead in heavy traffic on Lap 188 caused his No. 77 Toyota to spin and brought out the 11th caution, solidifying Wallace in the lead.

The series now heads to Texas Motor Speedway next weekend for Friday's Winstar World Casino and Resort 350 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1).

Results

POS CAR DRIVER START LAPS STATUS
1 34 Darrell Wallace Jr 1 200 Running
2 17 Timothy Peters 2 200 Running
3 88 Matt Crafton 3 200 Running
4 51 Erik Jones 15 200 Running
5 29 Ryan Blaney 5 200 Running
6 19 Tyler Reddick 10 200 Running
7 98 Johnny Sauter 7 200 Running
8 0 Matt Tifft 20 200 Running
9 32 Alex Guenette 12 200 Running
10 77 German Quiroga Jr 8 200 Running
11 75 Caleb Holman 22 200 Running
12 13 Jeb Burton 9 200 Running
13 8 John Hunter Nemechek 14 200 Running
14 20 Gray Gaulding 6 200 Running
15 15 Mason Mingus 23 200 Running
16 31 Ben Kennedy 13 200 Running
17 35 Peyton Sellers 26 200 Running
18 9 Brennan Newberry 21 200 Running
19 02 Tyler Young 24 200 Running
20 07 Enrique Contreras III 32 200 Running
21 08 Camden Murphy 29 200 Running
22 23 Max Gresham 17 200 Running
23 82 Cody Erickson 33 199 Running
24 86 Brandon Brown 27 198 Running
25 6 Norm Benning 34 196 Running
26 92 Austin Hill 19 195 Running
27 74 Wendell Chavous 36 193 Running
28 10 Jennifer Jo Cobb 35 192 Running
29 00 Cole Custer 4 184 Accident
30 21 Joey Coulter 11 184 Running
31 99 Bryan Silas 25 170 Running
32 33 Brandon Jones 16 150 Accident
33 05 John Wes Townley 18 150 Accident
34 80 Jody Knowles 31 124 Transmission
35 63 Justin Jennings 30 100 Brakes
36 50 T.J. Bell 28 44 Radiator

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