William Byron Scores First Career Truck Series Win

William Byron celebrates in Victory Lane

Jerry Markland/Getty Images

18-year old William Byron scored his first-career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win in just his fifth start in Friday night's Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway, locking up a spot in the Truck Series championship chase.

Wheeling a Toyota Tundra for Kyle Busch Motorsports, Byron capitalized on a last-lap crash that took out race leader Johnny Sauter and second-place Ben Rhodes, allowing Byron to slip by on the inside at take over the top spot just as the caution flag waved to end the race, beating out defending race winner Matt Crafton and Daniel Hemric for the victory.

Christopher Bell was fourth followed by Clint Bowyer.

Bryon becomes the first first-time winner this season and the third driver to be eligible for the Chase after Sauter and John Hunter Nemechek.

"This is a dream come true," said Byron in Victory Lane. "I was six years old watching Truck races. Didn't start racing until I was 14 and just to be in a Toyota Tundra like this is amazing."

"It's awesome. I mean, doing a burnout – I didn't even know how to do a burnout, so I just kind of found the gears and watched the smoke in the back and it was just really cool. I've visualized this for a little bit, but I never thought it would come like this."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] For much of the race, Crafton looked like the guy to beat after working his way up from the 13^th starting spot to grab the lead on lap 77 and leading the next 52 circuits until the "Caution Clock" expired on lap 122 to bring out the yellow flag.

The ensuing caution period caused chaos out on the track as teams that stretched their fuel to the limit began running out of gas, forcing NASCAR officials to keep pit road closed while the stalled trucks were pushed back to pit road.

With the pits closed, more trucks stalled as the field continued to run under caution before NACAR finally opened pit road on lap 126.

Crafton continued to lead when the race went back to green but another quick caution flag cost him the lead as Bryon took over the top spot on the restart and led 33 laps.

Bryon had a stout truck up front but had a mirror full of his teammate, Christopher Bell, who dogged Byron down to the finals laps before the caution waved for Tyler Reddick's spin with four laps to go.

Bryon took the high side for the restart with Bell down low followed by Hemric and Sauter, but once under green Sauter dived to the inside of Bell brining Rhodes with him while Byron went high to block Hemric. Byron fell all the way to fourth but powered back on the outside of Bell just as Crafton came up to make it three wide for fourth.

By the time the field came around to take the white flag, Byron had cleared Bell and Crafton and fell in line behind Sauter and Rhodes.

As the leaders came through the final turn, Rhodes tried to squeeze past Sauter on the inside but ended up turning him, sending both trucks hard into the outside wall.

William Byron takes the checkered flag over Matt Crafton

Robert Laberge/NASCAR via Getty Images

Bryon stayed to the inside and managed to dodge the wreck and was out in front of Crafton by two truck-lengths when the yellow flag waved to end the race.

Sauter's wreck ruined what would have been a come-from-behind victory after starting at the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments made to the truck prior to the race. Sauter had managed to fight his way back to the front, leading a total of nine laps, coming just a quarter of a lap from going from worst to first.

"I just got ran over by a bozo…I guess he's just brain dead," said Sauter. "It's just unfortunate that sometimes you can't race the way you want to."

Crafton's runner-up showing was his best finish of the season so far, and gave him a much-needed boost in the points standings – up five spots to sixth in points.

"It was definitely chaos without a doubt. I know we had the truck to beat without a doubt if we would have had clean air – I mean, clean air was huge. When we were ahead of the 9 (William Byron) earlier we drove away from him eventually. It's a shame because I know this thing was so good – a brand new truck we just brought here and these guys worked really, really hard and we had the truck to beat and that's racing."

Ryan Truex, Cole Custer, Timothy Peters, Ben Kennedy and Spencer Gallagher made up the rest of the top ten finishers. Peters eighth-place finish pushed him to the points lead over Hemric and Truex. Tyler Young hung onto fourth in the standings while Nemechek fell four spots to fifth in points.

Race Results

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