The roots of NASCAR can be traced back long before there were giant coliseums we call superspeedways today, before every race was televised, and even before the advent of safety technology like the SAFER barrier and HANS device. Those roots were on the dirt at short tracks around America, and NASCAR returns to those roots once a year with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in the MudSummer Classic.
The relatively new race on the schedule has become one of the crowned jewels of the Trucks schedule. Among the prior winners are Cup Series driver Austin Dillon, and Xfinity Series regular Darrell Wallace Jr. The brave men and women of the Truck Series would dust up the Eldora Speedway on Wednesday night, looking to add a third name to that list.
Unlike at all other races on the schedule, there are a variety of rule changes for the Trucks on dirt. Qualifying would be completed first by single truck qualifying, followed by heat races to get into the main event. Bobby Pierce (#63 Chevy) would be the fastest in both, and would start on pole.
Among the other unique qualities of the racing at Eldora is the four-wide salute to fans before the start, harkening to the short tracks around the country that race on Saturday nights, and the three segments of the race. The race would be divided up by competition cautions, where only under these would drivers be able to change tires and fuel up.
The racing, as expected on the dirt, was frantic. While many drivers struggled to adapt to the different surface, causing a multitude of cautions in the first segment, two young and relatively unknown faces emerged at the front of the field. It became clear early that polesitter Bobby Pierce, and Kyle Busch Motorsports driver Christopher Bell (#54 Toyota) were the class of the field, and would be leading the field into the third and final segment – a forty-lap shootout.
On the restart, Bell would stretch his lead over Bobby Pierce and third place Austin Dillon (#31 Chevy). Pierce would catch up on the high line, but would start smacking the wall hard trying to run down Bell. The truck of Bobby Pierce would have some hard damage on the rear, but a caution with twelve laps to go would be his saving grace, setting them up for another restart.
As the racing intensified with under ten laps to go, drivers moved wherever they could to challenge for the lead. Intense racing only paused with a caution very late in the going, setting up a green-white-checkered finish. The battle between Bell and Pierce would come to a head in Turn 4 on the final lap. Pierce closed on Bell in the final lap, and made one last run on doing the slide job out of Turn 4. When that came up short, destiny was set – Christopher Bell took his first victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in the MudSummer Classic at Eldora.
Meanwhile, while the race was the most unique on the schedule, it was no break for the championship contenders. Matt Crafton would leave with a fourteen-point lead over second place Tyler Reddick. The fight would continue on to Pocono next weekend in the Pocono Mountains 125. Coverage can be seen on Saturday, August 1st on Fox Sports 1.
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