5 for Bodine: Bodine wins NASCAR truck race at Texas to become first 5-time winner there

Bodine becomes first 5-time winner at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas — Todd Bodine passed up a chance to refuel on the final pit stop Friday night, and still had enough to win the fastest NASCAR Truck Series race ever at Texas Motor Speedway.

Bodine became the winningest driver for any series at Texas, racing to his fifth trucks victory at the 1½-mile, high-banked oval. He also is the first five-time trucks winner at any NASCAR track.

In a race with only two cautions and no crashes, Bodine won with an average speed of 152.282 mph. He finished 1.32 seconds ahead of Matt Crafton, who took the season points lead from Ron Hornaday Jr. Colin Braun was a distant third, 10.3 seconds back.

With teams not allowed to change tires and add fuel on the same stop, Bodine came through for tires on the final caution period. But crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. told him not to return to pit row for fuel before the final restart with 40 laps left.

Bodine went the final 63 laps of the 167-lap race on his last tank of fuel, and still had enough left to do celebratory burnouts in his Toyota on the frontstretch.

“I wasn’t concerned,” Bodine said, though he admitted he was glad no extra laps were needed for a green-white-checker finish.

When Bodine was in the pit for the tires, he also got other adjustments on what had been an ill-handling truck.

“This truck right into that last run, we were just too loose the whole race,” Bodine said. “Junior made some great calls at the end and fixed it up to make it run. This is an awesome night.”

While trying to conserve fuel on those closing laps, Bodine also was trying to maintain a comfortable lead in case the truck loosened up again. It didn’t, and Crafton couldn’t catch him.

“Right now, I’d give up the points lead to be where Todd Bodine is,” said Crafton, who has only one win in 205 career starts. “It was all about track position.”

Crafton has a 30 point lead over Hornaday. Mike Skinner, 39 points behind Crafton, finished 10th — a lap back.

Bodine earned his 17th career victory, all of them coming on superspeedways. It was his second victory this season, the other coming in the opener at Daytona.

Johnny Benson was fourth, followed by Rick Crawford. Only nine trucks finished on the lead lap.

Hornaday, who swept both Texas races last year, had led 55 laps when he made a green-flag stop on the 99th lap. But a tire got loose from his crew in the pits and he had to serve a drive-through penalty and fell out of the top 10. He finished 19th, four laps back after coming off the track early because of an engine problem.

Polesitter Johnny Sauter led the first 42 laps, but lost the lead after some problems in the pit during the first caution, brought out when Brian Scott brushed the wall in the second turn. Sauter was ninth on the restart, and finished sixth.

The only other caution came for debris, from laps 123-127. That is when Bodine won the race, taking tires but no fuel.

The 33 trucks starting matched the smallest field for a race at Texas, which had previously come in the inaugural race when the track opened in 1997. The latest field shrunk quickly with 10 of those trucks starting and then parking within the first few laps.