NASCAR Kentucky Truck Race Results: James Buescher Wins

Streaking away from Ty Dillon and Brad Keselowski after a restart with 36 laps left, James Buescher recorded his second NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory in Thursday night’s UNOH 225 at Kentucky Speedway.

Keselowski passed Dillon with two laps left to run second, 3.805 seconds behind Buescher. Dillon came home third, followed by pole-sitter Matt Crafton and Timothy Peters, who grabbed the series lead from Justin Lofton.

Johnny Sauter recovered from a pit road penalty to finish sixth, followed by Joey Coulter, Jason Leffler, Ron Hornaday Jr. and 19-year-old Kyle Larson, who was making his series debut.

A three-car wreck on Lap 69, involving two-time series champ Todd Bodine, Lofton and last week’s Nationwide Series winner Nelson Piquet Jr. put Lofton’s points lead in peril.

With a strong run to the inside in Turn 1, Bodine dived beneath Lofton, broke loose and knocked Lofton’s truck into the Chevrolet of Piquet, who slammed into the outside wall. Bodine blamed Lofton for not giving him enough room.

“I thought Justin was blowing up,” Bodine said. “I caught him so fast -- I didn’t know what was going on, if he got loose off of (Turn) 4 or what. I caught him so fast, thought he was blowing up, so I went under him, and, obviously, he wasn’t blowing up . . .

“He’s got plenty of room outside -- he’s got to learn to give some space here. When you get that close and that tight on somebody, you’re just taking all their air, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

Both Bodine and Piquet retired from the race at that point, but Lofton was able to continue. Taking a wave-around under the sixth caution -- called on lap 102 because of Tim George Jr.‘s spin into the Turn 2 wall -- Lofton regained a lap lost during repairs to his truck and salvaged a 14th-place finish to limit his damage in the standings.