Timothy Peters holds on for victory in fred’s 250 Camping World Truck Series race
Peters held off a host of challengers on the final lap to win the fred's 250 Powered by Coca-Cola. It was his first victory of the season and his first career win at Talladega Superspeedway.
Peters was the leader of a 17-truck pack that raced three-wide during most of the final two laps and occasionally went four-wide. Several drivers attempted to make moves to pass Peters, but the Red Horse Racing driver managed to hang on to the lead.
"It's just crazy how the outcome of this race was," said Peters, who won for the eighth time in the past six NCWTS seasons. "It was system overload. I was just trying to make my Toyota Tundra as wide as I could there at the end.
"It feels really good to go to Victory Lane here. You never know if the next victory is ever going to come. That's why every moment you can get to Victory Lane, you cherish that. We don't have as many wins this year as we'd like. But it's like they say, one win can fix everything."
Tayler Malsam finished second, followed by Spencer Gallagher in third, pole-sitter Tyler Reddick fourth and Ryan Blaney fifth. Erik Jones was sixth, Chris Fontaine seventh, John Wes Townley eighth, Mobile native Darrell Wallace Jr. ninth and Joe Nemechek 10th.
There were 18 lead changes in the 94-lap race, with six of them occurring in the final 19 laps. But even though there was not a lead change on the final lap, there was plenty of action going on behind Peters, as more than a dozen drivers were mixing it up in an attempt to take a shot at the lead.
"I'm pretty sure we just put on one of the best shows the Camping World Truck Series has seen in a long time," Gallagher said. "I now understand why they call Truck plate racing the best kind of racing."
NCWTS points leader Matt Crafton, who finished 14th, entered the race with a 19-point advantage over Johnny Sauter in the standings and left with a 16-point edge over Blaney. Sauter dropped out of the race after only 24 laps with a blown engine that occurred when he ran over a bolt that damaged the car's radiator.
"The championship is pretty much out the window now," said Sauter, who trails Crafton by 36 points with four races remaining. "We'll just lick our wounds and go on."