Johnny Sauter Wins Wild Truck Race at Daytona

Johnny Sauter

Chris Trotman/NASCAR via Getty Images

Johnny Sauter survived a wild night in Friday's season-opening NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway to earn his second-career Daytona victory and lock himself up a spot in the championship battle in the Truck Series Chase.

Sauter got just enough of a bump on the restart for the final three-lap shootout to edge ahead of Ryan Truex and was scored as the leader when the field started wrecking behind him on the final lap.

The race ended under yellow with Sauter taking the checkered flag and Truex scored second. Parker Kligerman, Brandon Brown and Travis Kvapil finished out the top five.

Friday night's race turned into a wreckfest in the final 10 laps, including two multi-truck wrecks and a 27-minute red flag that ultimately set the stage for the final dash to the finish.

The last-lap crash collected 18 trucks including the no. 4 Toyota of Christopher Bell that barrel-rolled at least 10 times before landing on its wheels.

Sauter's victory was the 11^th of his truck series career and his first since winning at Michigan in August of 2014. It was also the first-ever Daytona truck series victory for Chevrolet.

"Man, I was so pumped up," Sauter said. "This was unbelievable. This is a hard race to win.

"I honestly can't say that I'm surprised that we're here. I mean, I felt like after practice yesterday that we had as good a truck as anybody. I knew we had raw speed. It's one thing — and we proved it tonight. I've always had trucks that maybe didn't qualify that great down here, but we were able to win once before. But when a truck runs fast by itself, it really runs fast in the draft, too, so I did learn that tonight."

Sauter comes from a family with a rich racing heritage, including his two brothers and his father, Jim Sauter, who won the 1978 ARCA race at Daytona. Friday's win was the first for Johnny Sauter since his father passed away in October of 2014.

"This is my first win since he's passed away," said Sauter. "You know, the last race I won was at Michigan, and that was his favorite racetrack, and I didn't like it. I always struggled there, and then when I finally won, he's like, see, I told you that track is easy. So for me to get a win without him being here is just extra special, at a place that's just so hard to win and so prestigious, I can't emphasize enough how awesome it is to win at Daytona. But it's different when he's not here."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] The season-opening race was the first truck series race to utilize the new "caution clock", basically a 20-minute countdown that would bring out a caution flag once it expired.

It turns out, they didn't need it.

He first two cautions came out within the first ten minutes of the race, while the third came out with under 10 second left on the clock.

Up front, it was a typical Daytona dogfight, with Sauter, Austin Theriault, Tyler Reddick and pole winner Grant Enfinger all taking their turns leading the pack.

Lap 94 saw the big crash and the big game changer of the night, after Cameron Hayley got loose from a bump from Timothy Peters and got run over by the entire field. In all, 18 trucks got damage in the crash with eight retiring for the night, including Hayley, Ben Kennedy, Jon Wes Townley and Rico Abreu.

The crash brought out a 27-minute red flag with Truex scored as the leader. Once back under caution, the field was set up for a restart with three laps to go.

On the final restart, Truex took the inside line with Timothy Peters on his bumper while Sauter was on the high side trailed by Bell.

The leaders ran side by side until they reached the backstretch and Sauter appeared to get loose from the bump draft of Bell and lost omemtum as Truex and Peters pulled ahead single file.

Sauter and Bell fell back as far as fifth but powered their way back as Truex and Peters danced back and forth for the lead, with Sauter pulling even with Truex as the came to the line to take the white flag.

Moments later, Bell got turned off a bump from William Byron and slammed into Peters before spinning into the outside wall and flipping over. Bell's no. 4 Toyota barrel-rolled at least ten times before coming to a rest on its wheels. Bell emerged unhurt but was later transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.

Up front, Sauter was out ahead of Truex as the yellow flag waved, effectively ending the race under caution.

"If that wreck wouldn't have happened I think we had him," said Truex. "The bottom was just the place to be all day. It seemed like you could hook up and bump draft to the front. It just all came down to who could bump draft the best without locking up and stay out there, and the side draft on the top was huge, too. So you just had to make the right moves and be there at the end and we were, and unfortunately it just didn't end up in our favor."

Kligerman's finish was his best truck series finish since a 4^th-place showing at Talladega in October of 2013 and his first series start since the season-opener in 2014.

"After (the wreck) when you cleared out so many trucks I was focused on – literally in my mind I was thinking, you're gonna get the third. You're in fifth basically because I knew those trucks would pit, and (Sauter) is going to be on the outside. If you block him when he comes, you'll win this race and I didn't. I didn't live up to my premonition, but I guess I'll be beating myself up for a while."

RACE RESULTS

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