TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 Rookie Gio Ruggiero capped a typically dramatic afternoon of racing on the Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway high banks with the 21-year old\u2019s first career trip to Victory Lane in Friday\u2019s Love\u2019s RV Stop 225 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.<\/p>\n
Though not in the Playoffs, Ruggiero held off his Tricon Garage teammate and current championship leader Corey Heim in a two-lap overtime duel to the checkered flag, his No. 17 Toyota leading the way by a mere .059-second. The effort rewarded an absolutely strong day for the young driver, who won pole position and led a race best 37 of the 90 laps.<\/p>\n
He took the lead with two laps remaining in regulation after then-race leaders, ThorSport Racing teammates Ben Rhodes and rookie Luke Fenhaus made contact \u2013 both Fords spinning out and allowing Ruggiero and Heim to the front. The teammates held position for the two laps of overtime to claim the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper thankful all the guys on this 17-truck, they worked their butts off today and definitely brought the best piece today,\u2019\u2019 the Massachusetts driver Ruggiero said. \u201cWe showed it in qualifying and throughout the race there that we had the fastest piece. Thanks to Toyota and everybody who supports me. Great to win a race with my mom and dad here.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Heim\u2019s runner-up effort was the best showing by one of the eight Playoff drivers with only a single race remaining in this three-race round to finalize which four will race for the championship on Oct. 31 at Phoenix Raceway.<\/p>\n
Heim, the regular season points leader and 10-race winner, has led laps in all 23 races this season. He is the only driver with a secure entry to the Phoenix finale thanks to a victory in this round\u2019s opening race at the Charlotte ROVAL a week ago.<\/p>\n
ThorSport Racing\u2019s Ty Majeski \u2013 the reigning series champion \u2013 turned in an impressive rally on the afternoon to finish third after dropping to 34th in the 36-car field early with collateral damage from an early-laps accident.<\/p>\n
Rookie Dawson Sutton was fourth followed by Playoff driver Layne Riggs, who like Majeski, earned his top-five the hard way. He started at the rear of the field after an inspection violation and was involved to varying degrees in multiple incidents during the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just glad to end the day in one piece,\u2019\u2019 said Riggs, driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsport Ford. \u201cI know Chandler [Smith] gave me a bad push getting into the corner there and we both wrecked. Just so glad that wasn\u2019t a day-ender.<\/p>\n
\u201cStarted shotgun on the field and went to the back a few times, there at the end just trying to be patient and hold that bottom and hoping the top would break up and it did. Really bummed we didn\u2019t get any stage points. We\u2019re not quite in the position we want to be in but it\u2019s a lot better than it could have been.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Six of the eight Playoff drivers finished among the top-10 with Playoff driver Tyler Ankrum in sixth, followed by former three-time series champ Matt Crafton and part-time driver Corey Lajoie and Playoff competitors Rajah Caruth and Kaden Honeycutt rounding out the top-10.<\/p>\n
Three positions in the Championship 4 are still to be decided. The Playoff standings heading to the final race of this round show<\/p>\n
Caruth heads to Martinsville 14 points up on the cutoff line with Ankrum plus-eight and Honeycutt plus-five. Majeski is five points below the line and Riggs six back.<\/p>\n
Daniel Hemric, who had a tire go down late in the race during a green flag run, finished 34th and Grant Enfinger was 36th \u2013 essentially put both veteran drivers in a must-win situation next week at Martinsville. Hemric is 32 points below the cutoff line and Enfinger now 40 points back.<\/p>\n
Enfinger, the defending race winner was an innocent victim collected in an accident only four laps into the race, his No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevy among four Playoff trucks suffering damage. But Enfinger\u2019s Chevy was unable to continue making him the first title contender with issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cBounced off a guy on the inside and thought I had it saved, just one of those Talladega deals,\u2019\u2019 the Alabama-native Enfinger said. \u201cI love this place, but it just wasn\u2019t meant to be today. \u2026 so our job\u2019s pretty simple at Martinsville next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The series moves to the half-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway to decide which four drivers move forward in championship contention with the Oct. 24 Slim Jim 200 (6 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Christian Eckes \u2013 now a fulltime NASCAR Xfinity Series driver \u2013 is the defending race winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 Rookie Gio Ruggiero capped a typically dramatic afternoon of racing on the Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":317876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-317875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}