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| | Friday, October 8 | |||||
| Results
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Jay Sauter, whose crew gave him fresh tires late in the race, shoved his way under Mike Bliss with three laps remaining and went on to win Friday night's Kroger 225 race and break a year-long victory drought in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Sauter, who is moving to the NASCAR Busch Series Grand National
Division in 2000, became the season's 10th winner in a slam-bang
race which saw a record 75 laps run under caution.
Sauter beat Mike Wallace by 1.6 seconds to win his first race
since September 1998, when he guided the Richard Childress-owned
Chevrolet to victory at Martinsville, Va. Chevrolet's seventh win
of the season was just the first since June 26.
Out of the top 10 after making a stop for tires under caution on
the 168th lap, Sauter roared back through the field to pass Jack
Sprague for second place on the 220th of 225 laps around the
0.438-mile track. After banging fenders several times with Bliss,
Sauter made the winning pass between the track's first and second
turns on lap 223.
"My tires were a little better," Sauter said. "I could come
off Turn 1 like a rocket. When Mike and I got together, it was a
pretty serious crunch. I was worried I might have cut a tire. The
truck isn't going to run anymore this year so it didn't matter."
Bliss finished second in last year's Kroger 225, losing the lead
to Raines on the 216th lap. He wound up 11th, spinning on the final
lap as he unsuccessfully tried to hold back a pack of five
competitors.
"We were really slowing down," Bliss said. "It was just a matter of time until somebody hit me."
Sauter averaged just 57.445 mph in the slowest of five series
races run at Louisville Motor Speedway.
Wallace and Hensley finished third and fourth, followed by Kevin
Harvick as a final lap, three-wide battle through the second turn
saw Sprague shoved back to sixth. Two-time Louisville winner Ron
Hornaday finished seventh, coming back from a lap behind as did
eighth-place finisher Rick Crawford.
Dennis Setzer, rookie Mike Stefanik and Joe Ruttman completed
the top 10, the final drivers to complete all 225 laps.
Hensley led the most laps -- 167 -- but, by gambling that forecast
rain might halt the event short of its scheduled distance, was
forced to pit late and give up the lead.
Sauter was the last of three drivers who traded the lead four
times.
Sprague, who started the year's 23rd of 25 races 10 points
behind Greg Biffle, moved into the championship lead as Biffle
finished a wreck-plagued 14th. Sprague's unofficial point lead is
24 points.
| AUDIO/VIDEO   Jay Sauter holds on the take the checkered flag.avi: 898 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 Jack Sprague makes a nice recovery on this spin-out.avi: 765 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1  | |||||