At O'Reilly Raceway Park, it was the survival of the fittest between Johnny Benson and Ron Hornady. The caution flags fell just at the right time for Johnny Benson to keep Hornaday close and then to just wait for him to slip up.
Hornaday, who dominated a big part of the race, could never get away from Benson. Benson repeatedly tried to pass, but he just couldn't make it work, as he patiently waited for his chance.
Benson finally made the pass, coming off of a restart due to a caution with 42 laps left to race. For most of the night, Hornaday stuck to the high side of the track, and for whatever reason, he decided to try the low side. Thus, Benson pounced, took advantage of Hornaday's mistake, and assumed the lead.
Benson had to be nervous, with all the late cautions, especially since Hornaday has unarguably earned the reputation for being one of the best on restarts. But Benson didn't need to worry, he would hold off Hornaday by .484 seconds to win.
Benson got his second straight win, his third in the last four races, and added to his points lead.
Hornaday, from the drop of the green, was hunting for the lead. He started in fourth position, behind Bobby East, the pole sitter, who started in the outside line, his choice of position as the top qualifier.
Jack Sprague started in second position, on the inside row, and Erik Darnell started third.
By the first lap, Hornaday was second, four laps later, and he was well in the lead of the race. He would lead all but eight of the first 162 laps.
Let me add another amazing highlight.
On the race's second lap, you had Mike Skinner, Matt Crafton, and T.J. Bell racing like it was the last lap, going three-wide. T.J. Bell would eventually get around both. Although he brought out a caution when he lost it and spun, he still ended up with a good finish.
There was great racing all night, as the Trucks battled it out. Most of the restarts after the cautions also featured some great racing, with them all bunched up in a pack.
You know the racing was tough, especially when it took Dennis Setzer 27 laps to pass Rick Crawford, only picking up one position.
At times, Hornaday, when he did get away from Sprague and Benson, had anywhere from a 1.3 to 2.6 seconds lead.
Hornaday would lose the lead while pitting on the race's second caution flag. Benson just beat him off pit road and would lead for four laps under caution. But on the restart, Hornaday reclaimed the lead, getting it coming off the first turn and would hold onto for 62 more laps.
While both Hornaday and Benson were able to distance themselves from the rest of the field, Hornaday was never able to build up any type of lead on Benson. The many cautions flying late in the race kept them in close proximity.
The most spectacular crash of the night happened at about the 80th lap. Bobby East got caught in a wreck, resulting from some spectacular four-wide racing. He had his right-side tires on top of the outside wall, and Compton's No. 4 truck prevented him from rolling over. More amazing was that East quickly made repairs on pit road and went on like nothing happened.
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