Peters Toyota leads all 204 laps for Bristol Truck yawner

Timothy Peters ran to a wire-to-wire victory in Wednesday night's UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway, snatching back sole possession of the points lead in the Camping World Truck Series.

Peters, who started second, jumped to the lead past pole-sitter Cale Gale at the drop of the green flag and led every lap to roar to his second victory of the season and fifth of his career. The effort broke a tie atop the standings with top rookie Ty Dillon, who ran out of gas while running in the top five on the final restart and finished 21st.

Parker Kligerman, Peters' Red Horse Racing teammate, matched a career-best in second with Ross Chastain third in his best finish in the Truck Series. Joey Coulter and Brendan Gaughan completed the top five.

Peters became the first driver to lead from green to checkered since Ron Hornaday paced all 225 laps at Louisville Motor Speedway on July 12, 1997. The 1-2 Red Horse Racing finish also gave team owner Tom DeLoach a fitting present for his 65th birthday.

"What an awesome feeling," Peters said in Victory Lane. " … I just thank the good Lord for being with me and letting me win two in one year. We're working really hard, all the guys in the shop. The sky's the limit right now."

Peters withstood intense pressure on a handful of late-race restarts, most frequently from Brad Keselowski, the only driver racing in all three NASCAR national series this weekend. But the pressure from the Sprint Cup star subsided on the only attempt at a green-white-checkered finish that extended the race four laps past its scheduled 200-lap distance.

Kligerman slipped past Keselowski, his team owner until last week, on a restart with seven laps to go when the yellow flag flew for a final time for Gale's heavy crash on the backstretch. That gave Peters a buffer in the form of a teammate starting alongside for the final restart.

"It's my bad for getting a bad restart," said Kligerman, making just his second start for Red Horse. "I consider myself a lot better restarter than that, so I'll be beating myself up for the rest of the week, but congratulations to him. They've helped us so much."

The lengthy clean-up for Gale's wreck and ensuing overtime finish spelled doom for Keselowski and Dillon, who lined up third and fourth, respectively, for the final two-lap sprint. Keselowski's truck was the first to stall out; Dillon's sputtered to a near-stop moments later as Peters sailed away.

"I don't know — really confusing. I should have had a good three or four laps of fuel left," said Keselowski, who finished 25th in a quest for his first Truck Series victory. "I don't know. Something happened, and we'll have to go back and figure out what it was. We had a pretty good day going."

The race was the first for a NASCAR national series on Bristol's reconfigured .533-mile oval. Track officials opted to grind the top groove of progressive banking ground down with the desired effect of making the action closer. It was, eventually, after the first 81 laps were run without a caution period — the longest green-flag run to start a Truck Series race in more than seven years.

Peters boosted his points lead to 17 points over James Buescher, who finished seventh Wednesday. Dillon faded from his tie for the lead to third, 25 points off the top.

Results

FIN ST CAR DRIVER MAKE SPONSOR PTS/BNS LAPS STATUS
1 2 17 Timothy Peters Toyota Red Horse Racing 48/5 204 Running
2 9 7 Parker Kligerman Toyota Toyota 42/0 204 Running
3 15 08 Ross Chastain * Toyota Melon 1 41/0 204 Running
4 8 22 Joey Coulter Chevrolet Steak-umm 40/0 204 Running
5 11 2 Brendan Gaughan Chevrolet South Point Hotel & Casino 0 204 Running
6 5 119 Ryan Blaney Ram Cooper Standard 0 204 Running
7 28 31 James Buescher Chevrolet Exide Batteries 37/0 204 Running
8 17 9 Ron Hornaday Chevrolet Anderson's Maple Syrup 36/0 204 Running
9 7 88 Matt Crafton Toyota Menards / Great Lakes 35/0 204 Running
10 32 6 Justin Lofton Chevrolet Millennium Private Jet Services / Lofton Cattle 34/0 204 Running
11 10 13 Johnny Sauter Toyota Hot Honeys / Curb Records 33/0 204 Running
12 21 39 Ryan Sieg Chevrolet RSS Racing 32/0 204 Running
13 19 81 David Starr Toyota Chasco / Zachry 31/0 204 Running
14 27 23 Jason White Ford GunBroker.com 30/0 204 Running
15 23 27 B.J. McLeod Chevrolet Boggy Creek Air Boat Rides 29/0 204 Running
16 29 32 Miguel Paludo Chevrolet Duroline Brakes and Components 28/0 204 Running
17 22 18 Brian Scott Toyota Dollar General 0 204 Running
18 6 30 Nelson Piquet Jr. Chevrolet Drink B 26/0 204 Running
19 20 275 Caleb Holman * Chevrolet Food Country USA / Wise / Pizza Plus 25/0 204 Running
20 13 202 Tyler Young * Chevrolet Rando 24/0 203 Running
21 12 3 Ty Dillon * Chevrolet Bass Pro Shops / Tracker Boats 23/0 202 Running
22 30 99 Bryan Silas * Ford Rockingham Speedway 22/0 202 Running
23 24 92 Chad McCumbee Chevrolet FleetHQ.com / BTS Tire & Auto Service / QMI 21/0 202 Running
24 25 09 John Wes Townley * Toyota Zaxby's 20/0 202 Running
25 4 29 Brad Keselowski Ram Reese Towpower 0 201 Running
26 35 84 Russ Dugger Chevrolet JPO Absorbents 18/0 200 Running
27 36 57 Norm Benning Chevrolet Norm Benning Racing 17/0 196 Running
28 1 33 Cale Gale * Chevrolet Rheem 16/0 193 Accident
29 16 101 Jake Crum Chevrolet Bandit Chippers 15/0 187 Accident
30 18 98 Dakoda Armstrong * Toyota EverFi.com 14/0 168 Running
31 3 11 Todd Bodine Toyota Toyota Care 13/0 159 Accident
32 26 07 Jeff Agnew Chevrolet Mark 4 Suzuki 12/0 91 Accident
33 34 93 Chris Jones Chevrolet RSS Racing 11/0 81 Accident
34 14 168 Clay Greenfield Ram Titan Tool / Star Road-Guard 10/0 53 Brakes
35 31 38 Dennis Setzer Chevrolet RSS Racing 9/0 4 Brakes
36 33 5 Johnny Chapman Chevrolet Wauters Motorsports 8/0 2 Electrical

* Denotes Rookie

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