PHOENIX, Ariz.: For much of Friday night’s Lucas Oil 150 at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway, Ben Rhodes was the least competitive of the Championship 4 contenders.
But when the caution flag waved on Lap 134 for an incident involving Hailie Deegan, Rhodes and his ThorSport Racing saw an opportunity to throw themselves into the mix for not only the lead but for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title.
And it nearly paid off.
When pit road opened, Rhodes brought his No. 99 Kubota Toyota Tundra down pit lane with the rest of the Championship 4 contenders, when crew chief Rich Lushes made the call for two tires which vaulted Rhodes into the race lead.
On the restart, Rhodes was able to eventually overtake the two trucks of Carson Hocevar and Stewart Friesen who did not pit and control the race until the caution waved for Rhodes’s teammate Ty Majeski who lost control of his truck battling for second with Championship 4 rival Zane Smith with three laps remaining.
Enter NASCAR overtime.
Knowing that he was likely a sitting duck for the impending overtime restart, Rhodes would do his best to keep his two championship challengers of Zane Smith and Chandler Smith but utilizing fresher tires to his advantage, Smith was able to take the lead with two laps to go and set sail to the race win and Camping World Truck Series championship.
Vying for the runner-up spot, Rhodes would overdrive his truck on the final corner on the last lap and even connect with the Turn 4 wall to edge Chandler Smith for second on the track and in championship rank.
“I liked the fact that my crew chief, Rich Lushes, gives me those opportunities,” said Rhodes after the race. “He’s bold. He makes a lot of crazy pit calls like that, and sometimes they work. We were just on the cusp of making it work. I think if that last restart had come out, we could have held them off and be really happy right now.
“But I’m not. So here I am. I tell you, I’m thankful for those calls, I just wish it could have worked out differently. “Two tires versus four that was the name of the game.
“We didn’t have the pace all night that we needed to compete so it was a great heads-up call by my crew chief ultimately we didn’t need that last caution, I think we could have held him off for the final few laps. I was giving him all the dirty air he could handle.”
Before the seventh caution of the race, Rhodes had begun to extend his lead slightly when Majeski and Smith began to duke it out – but once Majeski spun and the Louisville, Kentucky native realized there was going to be a restart, he had a hunch that he wasn’t going to be able to fend off the guys with fresher left side rubber.
“I think we are going to be fine, until that caution just got us,” added Rhodes. “I did what I could on the restart to try and get a jump but with two tires versus four I just didn’t have the grip I needed. I tried to hold him off the best I could and threw a move on him at the very end and it just didn’t have grip to make it stick.”
Rhodes knew based on their performance throughout the race that he did not have the pace that likely would have led him to back-to-back Truck Series championship, but a gutsy call put them in the thick of the battle and that’s what mattered.
“We didn’t have the pace but we got up there,” Rhodes explained. “That’s what matters at the end.
“I even — coming into the checkered flag there, I even tried to drive it in as deep as I could to get to him. And the TV didn’t show it the best, but I just banged the truck off the wall because I wasn’t going to make the corner. I just used the wall to turn me and kind of pulled shades of Ross Chastain, I guess. I didn’t ride it, but I hit it and was able to barely stay in front of the No. 18 (Chandler Smith).
“Gave it all I had, and just didn’t have any more. We needed more pace all day long.
We just gotta go back and do our homework. Second is not fun. I’m going to milk my way all the back to Kentucky.”
When asked if he would do things different if he had another restart, Rhodes admitted he would have.
“If I could do it over again, I would’ve changed up my restart a little bit,” he said. “I went with what I thought would have been best for me.
“But again, not having the same level of grip that those guys had, I didn’t expect them to get as big of a jump that they got. I expected them to be with me a little bit but not pretty much in front of me by Turn 1. Yeah, that was a little unexpected. If I could go back, I would change that for sure.
“It’s unexpected to be racing for the win like that when we were sixth through tenth the whole day. So that pit strategy was really very appreciated. That’s what gave me the chance, and I think it was bold, and it could have paid off big. It definitely paid off to get second.”
Looking ahead to next season, Rhodes is proud of the work ethic of his race team – but he realizes there is more work to be done especially during the regular season so the Playoffs could hopefully be a little more relaxed than they have been the past two seasons, especially since the depth of the Truck Series field only continues to intensify.
“We just fight, fight, fight no matter what,” Rhodes said. “I’ve got that down. We just gotta find more speed and get the consistency when it matters. That would make our Playoffs a little easier. That would allow us to spend some more time focusing on some R&D or sim stuff.
“The Truck Series has just grown in depth, and the strength of the field has become incredible. Like, it is getting so incredibly hard to get top 10s now, where if I could take the skill set that I’ve developed now and the crew and the team that I’ve put together now and take that back years ago, I think we’d be doing some really special things.
“Nothing to discredit the past, but this field has just grown so strong. I expect nothing less in the future. I think it’s just going to get tougher and tougher.
“I’m proud of the fight the fight that we have, the tendency, the grit to be able to come in clutch when we need to, but I’d like to not be coming in clutch all the time.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
