Truck Luck Not on Brad’s Side

With 12 laps remaining in Wednesday night’s UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Brad Keselowski was in prime position for his first Camping World Truck Series Victory.

But as he sat in fourth place on a restart, Brad was just behind the wrong guy at the wrong time. Second place Matt Crafton’s No. 88 truck stalled on the restart, leaving Brad and his No. 19 Cequent F-150 with no place to go.

“In racing you have to have speed, execution and luck,” Brad said afterward. “We had two of the three and that’s not enough.”

With the No. 88 stalled in front of him, BK was contacted from behind and spun around onto the apron while the whole field passed him by. Following the caution, Brad restarted at the tail end of the lead lap in 13th and picked up four spots to finish ninth in his third Camping World Truck race of the season.

Afterward Kes lamented the unfortunate turn of events that cost him a chance to challenge Kyle Busch for the win.

“The truck in front of me ran out of gas and you’re not allowed to pass before the line. But I couldn’t have made the move even if I tried, it happened so quick,” he said. “When he ran out of fuel, I got hit from behind and instantly turned. At least it didn’t destroy my truck. But still with what it does to the tires, I didn’t really have a chance from there. But I guess that’s just racing.”

BK didn’t blame Crafton for what happened, in fact he said the incident is another example of a continuing problem in Truck series races on high-banked tracks like Bristol or Dover.

“The way the fuel cells are in the trucks, on banked tracks like this, they just don’t pick up the fuel,” he said. “So even if you have enough fuel, if you’re low on fuel it won’t pick it up and you run out of gas.”

Salvaging a ninth place finish kept BKR’s No. 19 truck in the sixth spot in the Owner’s Point Standings and was one of two Top 10s for Brad Keselowski Racing. BKR driver Ryan Blaney drove to a third place finish to pick up a spot into 7th in the Camping World Truck Series driver points standings.