Sauter Wins Texas Truck Race
FORT WORTH, Tex. — For a Yankee from Wisconsin, Johnny Sauter is fast developing an affinity for the Lone Star State.
Passing Parker Kligerman with 10 laps left, Sauter won Friday nights Winstar World Casino 350 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race to claim his second victory of the season. Both of Sauter’s wins have come 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway.
Sauter finished 2.199 seconds ahead of Kligerman, who came home second. Nelson Piquet Jr. ran third, followed by Kyle Busch and Ty Dillon, who trimmed six points off series leader James Buescher’s advantage with two races left in the season.
Sauter roared past Piquet, the polesitter, on Lap 100 and quickly began to stretch his advantage. The margin reached nearly three seconds, but soon the handling of Sauter’s truck began to deteriorate, and Kligerman cut the edge to less than a second before the lead-lap trucks began a round of green-flag pit stops on Lap 113.
Quick pit work on a two-tire stop put Kligerman in the lead by more than three seconds over Sauter by the time the pits stops cycled through. Sauter, on four new tires caught and passed the No. 7 truck on lap 137 of 147
After restart from the second spot on Lap 70 Buescher reported a vibration in his No. 30 Chevrolet and began to fall back through the field. On Lap 95, Buescher lost the ninth position to Justin Lofton, and with Dillon running fifth at the time, faced the prospect of losing a significant portion of the 21-point series lead he held entering the race.
Buescher held on to finish 11th and leaves Texas with a 15-point advantage.
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