Ben Rhodes Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor AVONDALE, Ariz. – The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will be the first title fight of the weekend to be settled, as the four remaining drivers in the Playoffs will duke it out Friday night at Phoenix Raceway for the right to hoist the championship trophy when the checkered flag falls. Eight drivers started the Playoffs with a berth in the championship race in mind, but half of them fell by the wayside, leaving Matt Crafton, John Hunter Nemechek, Ben Rhodes, and Zane Smith as theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – On a track strewn with spinning trucks and broken hearts, Zane Smith catapulted into the Championship 4 with a thrilling overtime victory in Saturday’s United Rentals 200 at Martinsville Speedway. In a no-holds-barred race that featured 14 cautions for 89 laps, Smith won under yellow after he, Stewart Friesen and Todd Gilliland raced three-wide—yes, three-wide at Martinsville—off Turn 4 on the first lap of overtime. Contact from Friesen’s Toyota sent Gilliland’s Ford spinning across the start/finish line to start the finalRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service For the second consecutive week the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series crowned a first-time winner. Christian Eckes, a 20-year old New York native, took the lead on a final restart with four laps remaining to claim his first trophy and lead a historic 1-2-3-4 finish for the ThorSport Racing team. Eckes teammate Ben Rhodes finished .272-seconds back, followed by Playoff driver Matt Crafton and veteran Johnny Sauter who completed the ThorSport four-of-a-kind at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Todd Gilliland finished fifth after leading aRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service In a stunning upset on Thursday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, rookie Chandler Smith stole a victory from reigning NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Sheldon Creed, clinched a spot in the Round of 8 of the Playoffs and eliminated Todd Gilliland from the postseason. The entire tenor of the UNOH 200 presented by Ohio Logistics changed in the final five laps. On a restart on Lap 196 of 200, Smith powered his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to the inside of Creed’sRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Sheldon Creed dominated the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoff opener, the Toyota 200 presented by CK Power at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, sweeping both stages and leading 142 of 163 laps to take the victory Friday night in overtime. And while the evening went relatively straight-forward for the defending series champion Creed in his winning-performance, the race was full of storylines elsewhere from a nearly one-hour red flag delay when the track lost power to a multi-truck accident shortly after thatRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KNOXVILLE, Iowa—At the end of a remarkable race on an equally remarkable race track, Austin Hill took home the trophy in Friday night’s Corn Belt 150 at Knoxville Raceway. After a fourth attempt at overtime in the inaugural NASCAR Truck Series event at the iconic .5-mile dirt track, Hill scored his first victory of the season in a race that featured 14 cautions and a 17-car pileup in Turn 1 that could rival the biggest “Big One” at Talladega. Moments after Hill took theRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Ryan Preece took the lead from Grant Enfinger with seven laps remaining in the Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville Superspeedway to earn his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory Friday night in his first race in the series. Preece, the 30-year old Connecticut native who competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, is only the fifth driver in history to win in his truck series debut. “That was a lot of fun,” Preece said, adding, “Really I didn’t know what to expect. IRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service With his third victory of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season, John Hunter Nemechek reaffirmed Kyle Busch Motorsports’ mastery of 1.5-mile intermediate tracks on Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Nemechek held off Sunoco rookie Carson Hocevar over a closing 10-lap green-flag run after a violent crash at the entrance to the tri-oval stripped the body off Johnny Sauter’s No. 13 Toyota and slowed the race for nine caution laps. The victory was Nemechek’s first at Charlotte and the ninth of his career.Read More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Todd Gilliland was so fast and so determined out front in Saturday’s Toyota Tundra 225 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race his own team had to remind him to slow down and take care of his tires in the closing laps of the series debut at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) race. Despite receiving the cautionary advice, Gilliland, 21, did not ease off and raced to a hefty 7.941-second margin of victory to earn his second career series win and first since 2019.Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service After a 17-truck wreck effectively ended Kyle Busch Motorsports’ stranglehold on the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Sheldon Creed outdueled Ben Rhodes on the final two restarts to win Friday night’s LiftKits4Less.com 200 at Darlington Raceway. Driving a No. 2 GMS Racing Chevrolet whose paint scheme was an homage to the late Jason Leffler, Creed took the lead from runner-up Rhodes in a side-by-side battle after a restart on Lap 140.  After Danny Bohn’s spin brought out the 11th caution of the race onRead More