RICHMOND, Va.: While Ty Majeski was winning his second straight short-track race on Saturday night at Richmond Raceway, Daniel Dye was achieving a first.
With a solid eighth-place finish that included a rally from a late glitch on pit road, Dye became the first driver to race his way into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs from below the cut line entering the final regular-season race.
Dye overtook Tanner Gray, who came to Richmond 10th in the Playoff standings with a five-point lead over Dye. But the driver of the No. 43 McAnally Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet soon took charge.
After starting 13th, Dye soon cracked the top 10. He finished sixth in Stage 1 and third in Stage two to score a total of 13 championship points, erasing Gray’s advantage. In the final stage, Dye ran steadily in the top 10 until a slow pit stop under caution on Lap 226 of 250 left him seven positions behind Gray for a restart on Lap 231.
With Dye on new tires and Gray having already used his last set of stickers, Dye quickly overtook his rival after the restart and charged forward to finish eighth to Gray’s 12th. That was all Dye needed to bump his way into the Playoffs.
“It feels like Christmas now,” a relieved Dye said after the race. “It’s really good to validate myself and the work I’ve been putting in and change up what I’ve been doing.
“Oh, man, it’s so cool to have our No. 43 in the Playoffs. It’s not an easy race track. I’m just so proud of everybody. (They’ve) been working so hard, to try to keep me under control and not too freaked-out.
“Proud to be here. It’s a race track I didn’t like last year. I don’t like Milwaukee either, but we’re headed to Milwaukee (for the first Playoff race on Aug. 25), so let’s go do it.”
By the end of Stage 1, Christian Eckes had clinched the regular season title and the 15 Playoff-point bonus that goes with it: Taylor Gray, Tanner’s brother, had earned a spot in the Playoffs on points as a 19-year-old.
Stewart Friesen, still part of the chase for the final Playoff berth when the race started, faded in a car that wouldn’t handle. And Tanner Gray had gone a lap down at the hands of race winner and early leader Majeski.
Though Tanner returned to the lead lap as the highest-scored lapped car at the end of Stage 2, he couldn’t hold the temporary advantage he gained with an off-cycle tire strategy.
“We didn’t have the balance, and I didn’t do a good enough job,” Tanner Gray said after the race. “When you come into a race (like this), you’ve got to be better, and we weren’t tonight.
“Congrats to Daniel. They were better, and they were better coming down the stretch when it mattered.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
