Jake Garcia won the UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series over Bayley Currey, who finished second.
Garcia snagged his first national-series win, four years after his 2022 debut; he led 104 out of the 250 laps.
“We had a good strategy to help us come from the back, get some track position, start stage three with the lead and just kinda took off from there, Garcia told FOX Sports 1 post-race. “Hd some adversity on that last restart but fortunately the truck was fast enough to overcome that [I’m] just really proud of this moment.”
Currey posted a career-best second-place finish, followed by Stewart Friesen and Justin Haley, who finished fourth for RAM’s best finish of the season. Tristan McKee finished fifth for a career-best result in his three series starts.
Gio Ruggiero was the highest-finishing Chase driver in sixth, followed by William Sawalich, Kaden Honeycutt, Ty Majeski and Grant Enfinger to make up the rest of the top 10.
Layne Riggs won the first stage, followed by Honeycutt, Chandler Smith, Garcia, Majeski, McKee, Daniel Hemric, Ben Rhodes, Friesen and Haley, rounding out the top 10.
Riggs, Honeycutt and Smith were again 1-2-3 in stage two, with Garcia, Majeski, Friesen, Nick Leitz, Tanner Gray, Currey and McKee behind them.
Jackson Macenko in the No. 22 was black flagged and parked for not meeting the minimum required speed on two separate occasions.
On lap 81, a caution came out after five different drivers hit the wall due to oil leakage by Caden Kvapil in the No. 76. Leitz, Frankie Muniz, Kris Wright, Ruggiero and Majeski all spun or hit the wall due to the spillage, and eventually a red flag was thrown due to the amount of oil spilled.
The biggest turning point in the race were the pitstops after the second stage when Riggs, who had led all 135 laps to that point, had a slow stop. Some laps later, it was found he had a loose tire and had to come back for a green-flag pit stop that dropped him down the field.
His day got even worse when he got into an incident with Leitz late in the race and had to come back in to the pits again for more repairs, which dropped him to 32nd in the end.
Thankfully for Riggs, Honeycutt had a loose tire of his own, but a caution came out before Honeycutt was hurt too much and he was able to pit for new tires. Honeycutt made his way back into the top 10 but was a bit a away from the second place he was at when the loose tire occurred.
The Truck Series will return to action on Saturday, Sept. 17 at Kansas Speedway for the second race in The Chase. The race will be broadcast on FS1.
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