Busch brushes wall handing truck win to Ty Dillon

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

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