Johnny Sauter won Friday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series NC Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Sauter got the jump on the field on the night’s final restart with 10 laps to go and went to score his third win of the season. It was his 20th career series win and first at CMS. He led 71 of the night’s 134 laps.
“It’s a tough place and everybody wants to win here and I never thought I’d win here,” Sauter said. “I’ve good runs here and I’ve had very humbling runs here, to say the least.
“To win this race is just super special. I can’t thank everyone at GMS Racing enough. It was a team effort. I was worried about out pit strategy there at the beginning and then we just mowed right through.”
Kyle Busch, Brandon Jones, Brett Moffitt and Ben Rhodes rounded out the top five.
Busch was frustrated after having to drive back to the front of the field twice following mistakes by his crew on pit road – penalties for crewmember(s) over the wall too soon.
“If my pit crew did not lose me six, seven spots and then have penalties and have to restart at the back every single time,” Busch said. “We passed the most trucks, but if you pass the most trucks, it doesn’t matter if you can’t win the thing where you need to be, restart where you need to be. Really pathetic night on pit road.
“These trucks are terrible in traffic. You can’t pass. Splitter game is horrendous. They want flat splitters and you put flat splitters on these things and they plow.”
Stewart Friesen, Parker Kligerman, Noah Gragson, John Hunter Nemechek and Todd Gilliland completed the first 10 finishers.
Moffitt and Nemechek won the first two stages of the night.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to action on Friday night, June 8 at Texas Motor Speedway.
