BRISTOL, Tenn. — While the focus for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is on the playoffs as Bristol Motor Speedway hosted the second of the three-race Round of 10, Ben Rhodes tried to spoil the party. The two-time series champion came up 0.750 seconds shy of capturing his first victory since at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2023.
“Apart from finishing second, it was excellent,” Rhodes told Frontstretch post-race about his second-place finish. “Had a great time, and there was times where our truck showed real speed that was faster than [Layne Riggs]. Just couldn’t get past him, running some pretty defensive moves on me. Between that and the lapped traffic, we could never get the timing down to complete the run. So, just had a real fast Campers Inn Ford F-150.”
“Thankful to everyone at ThorSport Racing for this opportunity,” he continued. “It’s really, really fun to race again for the win and all these awesome fans. You know, I just had a blast. I’m smiling cause I’m happy. It’s fun to race for wins. This is a really cool place to do that. And like, you could run the top, you could run the bottom. It’s hard to have a truck that can do that, especially when they put the traction compound down, but we had a truck that could do both.
“And I kinda showed my hand a little too soon to [Riggs]. I started building my momentum a little too soon, and then he went up and blocked it cause I had my good run, and maybe I should’ve waited a lap or two longer, got a little closer, and then did that. Maybe it would’ve been a different story, I don’t know.”
ThorSport Racing overall had a good run at Bristol on Thursday (Sept. 11) night. Three of the four drivers finished inside the top 10, and while Jake Garcia was the lone outlier, he had a fast No. 13 Ford. Garcia won stage one and earned the fastest lap bonus, but his run was derailed due to an engine issue.
Rhodes, too, has a solid record at Bristol. In 13 starts, he has three top fives, eight top 10s, and only one DNF. He also won the 2022 Truck race at the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt track.
“There’s certain tracks that ThorSport has always done good at, no matter what changes in the series,” Rhodes noted. “Bristol is one of them, Martinsville [Speedway] is another one they’re good at, just something about our organization and our understanding of short tracks that they excel at. And like, as a driver, knowing that, you always circle those events on your calendar. The dirt tracks, when there was dirt racing, was one everybody circled, and you had all these ringers that would want to show up to drive for ThorSport because of that. So, this is one of those races that I think ThorSport does an excellent job with.”
Now, the series heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the first time since 2017. Rhodes has two starts there in 2016 and ’17. He finished seventh there in ’17, but he’s leaning on his ’16 race because the track did not deploy the traction compound that year and will not do so this year.
“I hope really well,” he said about his NHMS expectations. “Since I’m not in the playoffs, there’s not that pressure to try to make sure we stay within some sort of confines and make sure you have a solid setup. We’re going to experiment. If it’s really bad, it’s really bad. If it’s really good, I think it will be really good.
“And we really want to use this as an opportunity. We recognize our season is over, and it is – that’s just plain and simple, blunt – so we recognize that and are taking full opportunity of what it is to experiment and do kind of a study to try to come up with some unique packages that will be unique to the No. 99 team. Something that we can build on for the future. It’s hard to do this Next Gen practice and get real practice sessions. So, yeah, it sucks to miss the playoffs, but we’re making it an opportunity to do something about it.”
Rhodes beat nine of the 10 playoff drivers and left with a smile on his face. Mind you, he’s 11th in points, the highest driver not in the playoffs. He finished 11th in the playoff opener at Darlington Raceway. He left with a smile on his face, something not a feeling shared by all playoff drivers, sans Riggs and Corey Heim, who have advanced into the Round of 8.
“Yeah, well, when you’re in the playoffs, there’s a lot of pressure that goes on with that,” Rhodes added. Right now, we’re having fun, and by virtue of our great partners … we got a lot of really great partners that support us. So, it’s easy to do when they’ve got your back and come on out and have fun. Racing for wins, it’s what we love to do. Came up one spot short, but it’s fun doing it.”
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.