Ryan Truex captured his 12th top-10 finish of the season on Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) with an eighth-place finish. The result gave Truex top-10's in both trips to TMS this season.
For the third-consecutive race, Truex qualified chassis No. 007 in the top five with a fifth-place qualifying effort in the final round of time trials on Friday afternoon. Truex took the green from that position and immediately moved forward before an early caution on lap five. After the lap 10 restart, Truex radioed his team that the heat cycle on tires made his Chiba Toyopet Tundra too snug in turns 1 and 2. Truex pitted under a lap 26 caution for four tires and adjustments in an effort to get off pit sequence once Stage 1 ended on lap 35. Truex cycled back up to sixth position once Stage 2 went green on lap 43.
Truex instantaneously climbed back into the top five on lap 44, and made a bid for the race lead, but had his efforts thwarted by a loose condition in traffic. The aero balance in dirty air kept the driver of the No. 16 Chiba Toyopet Toyota out of the lead, but didn’t stop him from earning a fifth-place finish in Stage 2. Truex came to pit road for another four-tire change and air pressure adjustments under the stage caution on lap 71, but restarted 13th after several trucks elected to stay on track.
The race’s final 71 laps ran under the green flag as drivers with long run speed flexed their muscles. Despite struggling over the bumps in turns 3 and 4, Truex solidified himself well inside the top 10 during the final green flag run. As the field cycled through a round of pit stops with less than 30 laps to go, crew chief Scott Zipadelli brought Truex to pit road for fuel only and a small chassis adjustment. Truex rejoined the field in 12th and picked off four positions to take the checkered flag in eighth position. Truex remains ninth in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship standings with two races left on the schedule.
Ryan Truex Quote:
“We had another great qualifying effort, and these guys put together a good Chiba Toyopet Toyota this weekend. They did a lot of work to get this truck back into shape after the Las Vegas race and we had some decent speed this weekend. It was so difficult to pass. It was almost like a slot car track where all the speed was on the bottom on both ends of the racetrack and it was really difficult to make up much ground on anyone. You really had to get everything you could on those restarts, and we made the most of them tonight. These HRE guys had good stops on pit road tonight, and helped us keep as many spots as we did when the pit strategies got shuffled around. We all want to get into victory lane, but it's good to have the consistency to run in the top-10."
