(WOMR file photo)
You would think that, if you start out the race suffering from a carburetor malfunction, that your race truck will not have a remote chance to even finishing the race. However, that major malfunction did not keep the Turner Motorsports #31 Chevy Silverado, and driver James Buescher from maximizing their efforts. Quite to the contrary, James Buescher and team reigned triumphant, winning the race, despite being two laps down early in the night!
“We had issues early on where we kept losing power, so we decided to pit, changed the carburetor and the car came to life,” Buescher said. “From there, it was a matter of getting our laps back and going forward from there.”
Finishing second was Brendan Gaughan, who led 83 of the 150 laps, and who appeared headed to his first win in nine years but spun his tires on a late restart.
“I think about not winning (since 2003) every single day,” Gaughan said. “I thought tonight might finally be our night. But still, to run the way we did, and the great equipment Richard Childress gave us, this was really a great run, especially since we’re only racing a part-time schedule.”
Gaughan, starting only his fourth race of the season, was hoping for his first NCWTS win since Oct. 11, 2003 at Texas Motor Speedway, his sixth triumph of that season. Unfortunately, he would come up short, extending his current winless streak to 130 races.
Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway, several drivers reached significant milestones in their respective careers:
Just one lap before halfway through the 150-lap event, four-time series champion Ron Hornaday became the second driver in NCWTS history to complete 50,000 laps in his career. Hornaday finished 6th.
Todd Bodine, who made his 200th series start, became the first driver to earn at least 200 starts in each of NASCAR’s three premier series: NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, finished 18th.
David Starr became the fifth driver in series history to reach 300 starts. Starr finished 10th.
