Erik Jones won the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park after Alex Tagliani – chasing him for the win on the final lap – lost fourth gear and fell to fifth.
Leading 19 laps around the 2.459-mile road course, Jones won for the second time in 2015, and sixth time in his Camping World Truck Series career.
“Just a great day,” Jones said. “Awesome to get back in Victory Lane here again and hopefully get things rolling fore the next few weeks.”
The race came down to a two-lap shootout where Jones was able to edge out front of Tagliani and get the win.
“I had to clear the [No.] 29,” Jones said of the final restart. “We raced and we were able to clear him. Fortunately he ran out of gas going up the hill but I think we could’ve held him off anyways.”
Tagliani won the pole for the second straight year at Mosport. The open-wheel veteran once again missed out on NASCAR triumph when he was left with third gear on the track’s fastest straightaway.
“I had a couple of grinding in third gear. On the back straightaway, as soon as I went to third gear, it shredded. Put it into fourth, but it was too low in rpm and the guys went by us.
A fifth place on Sunday made a fifth top-five finish in only eight NASCAR national series starts for Tagliani.
“All weekend we did really good,” he said.
The championship trio was split on the racetrack – with Jones getting the win and points leader Tyler Reddick crashing late with Gray Gaulding. Matt Crafton kept clean in his Thorsport Toyota to sneak into second place.
“I really didn’t want to see that last yellow but as I said it worked out,” Crafton said. “Top-two finish, not too bad. Especially from where we were two years ago. Two years ago, we were a disgrace.”
Crafton exits Canada only three points behind the new championship leader Jones. Reddick falls to third, now 15 markers back.
The race saw a 23-lap green-flag stint where the leaders made their final pit stops.
A hard crash by Brandon Jones on lap 45 would start a breed of yellows that eventually set up the two-lap sprint to the end.
The race witnessed multiple young guns charge toward the front and even spend some time in the lead. Canadian Cameron Hayley was the only driver to not pit early and stretched his fuel to nearly the halfway mark – spending 13 laps out front and finishing seventh. Ben Kennedy tied his career-best Truck Series effort, finishing third.
“Really happy to bring it home third,” Kennedy said. “This is awesome for our team. It’s a big momentum shift for us.”
Daniel Hemric continues his hot run of races in 2015, with a fifth straight top-10 finish, coming home fourth.
“It was wild to say the least,” the rookie said. “The race started out wild for us, kind of a constant battle learning what I need to learn throughout the race.”
Rounding out the top 10 is Johnny Sauter in sixth, Spencer Gallagher, John Hunter Nemechek and Cole Custer, who overcame multiple run-ins with Tagliani to still muster a top-10 result.
2015 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 250 RACE RESULTS
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.