Ben Rhodes: “All That Hard Work Finally Paid Off”

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer

CONCORD, N.C. – Coming off a heartbreaking loss at Kansas Speedway, Ben Rhodes heads into the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway with confidence.

Earlier in the month, prior to the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte, and the Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas, NASCAR held open test sessions at the 1.5-mile Charlotte track for both NASCAR Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series teams. In the test session, Rhodes’ ThorSport Racing No. 27 Safelight Toyota Tundra was seventh on the speed charts.

Last year Rhodes made his first Charlotte start, starting from 12th, and ultimately finishing 17th.

In the Truck Series, Rhodes has 11 starts on 1.5-mile tracks with one top five at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and two Top 10s.

Rhodes has 31 career Truck Series starts with four top fives, nine Top 10s, and one pole position. He also has 10 NASCAR Xfinity starts where he earned two Top 10s for JR Motorsports.

Rhodes was confident that his team has finally turned the corner,

“I felt like the test session went really well for us. Our 27 Safelight Tundra was a lot faster at the end of the practice session than when we started. I honestly think that a lot of our speed last weekend at Kansas Speedway came from the (Charlotte) test session.”

“Last year I was a rookie but I still didn’t get to use any of my testing sessions. We had a lot of adversity we had to overcome at ThorSport last year, so now that we have time and I’m not a rookie, this is something that I really looked forward to, and we had so much stuff that we tried and worked on with Toyota, with our teammates, everybody, just coming into the practice session, and I think all that hard work finally paid off.”

Now Rhodes and his ThorSport Racing team will look to seal the deal at Charlotte after coming so close one week ago.