By AMANDA VINCENT
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series regular Sammy Smith played NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series spoiler at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway on Friday. He won the Love’s RV Stop 225, his first-career Truck Series win in his 11th-career race in the series, his second of the season.
“Yeah, just a great team, honestly, Brian Pattie (crew chief) and the whole No. 7 Spire crew. Michael Fisher (spotter) did a great job up on the spotter stand,” Smith said. “The truck was fast. I felt like we did a good job putting ourselves, there, in a good spot. Obviously, we lost track position, but man, thanks to Spectrum and everyone for coming on board, Spire for giving me this opportunity.”
Tyler Ankrum finished second. Part-time O’Reilly driver Austin Green finished third in his Truck Series debut. Ty Majeski and points leader Kaden Honeycutt rounded out the top-five.
The race included 32 lead changes among 15 drivers. Smith led a race-high 21 laps. Green was the only other driver who recorded double-digits in laps-led, running up front for 14 laps.
The yellow flag waved five times. A caution for Thomas Annunziata and Grant Enfinger on lap 79 sent the race into overtime, extending the distance from 85 to 86 laps. Other late-race cautions included a lap-57 yellow flag for Jake Garcia, Chandler Smith and Conner Jones.
Gio Ruggiero won the opening stage with Kaden Honeycutt in second. The stage, scheduled for 20 laps, ended early because of a large multi-truck crash on lap 17. Drivers involved in the pileup included Stewart Friesen, Tony Stewart, Corey LaJoie, Andres Perez de Lara, Cleetus McFarland, Cole Butcher, Daniel Hemric and Kris Wright. The incident led to a red flag.
“Must have hit something going into (turn) one and cut down a tire and tried to get out of it, and there was nowhere to go,” Friesen said. “Couldn’t hang on to it and collected a bunch of trucks. Bummed. I felt like our Halmar Tundra was pretty good and really upset that we had an issue and tore up a bunch of stuff.”
Majeski started on the pole, and Smith and Green each led six lap in stage one.
After his stage win, Ruggiero went to the garage with a transmission issue.
Stage two also ended early when a flat right-rear tire for Enfinger resulted in a caution on lap 39. Tanner Gray won the stage with Layne Riggs in second.
Green was the frontrunner after stage one and led several more laps in stage two. Enfinger was the leader when he slowed with a flat tire, and Gray took his stage-winning lead on lap 38.
Jake Garcia stayed out, and Dawson Sutton took fuel only to restart first and second near the halfway point of the race. But Garcia pitted with a flat tire just before the race returned to green, allowing Majeski to move to the front.
After the yellow flag waved for debris on lap 49, Riggs took the lead with a fuel-only pit stop and Gray second after getting only two new tires.
Landen Lewis finished the race in the sixth position, Brenden “Butterbean” Queen was seventh, Riggs eighth, Spencer Boyd ninth and Corey Heim 10th.
