DOVER, Del. – Zane Smith survived a late-race restart to earn his second NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series victory of the season Friday evening at Dover Int’l Speedway.
The victory also earned Smith an extra $50,000 as the KDI Office Technology 200 was the second race in the three-race Triple Truck Challenge for series regulars.
“Hopefully I can pay off my Chevy Silverado,” Smith joked after being reminded he earned the $50,000 bonus. “What an awesome truck. I think we all know I suck at restarts, but I picked a good time to have a good one.”
The race was dominated by Smith and his GMS Racing teammate, Brett Moffitt. Smith won the second stage, but a poor restart on lap 98 when the final stage began dropped him back a few positions and allowed Christian Eckes to pull into the lead.
Eckes would hold the top spot for the next 31 laps while Smith and Moffitt attempted to run Eckes down. Smith and Moffitt worked their way up to second and third, with Moffitt slipping past Smith to take second on lap 128.
On the next lap Moffitt was able to get under and by Eckes to take the lead. Smith soon dispatched Eckes as well and began to close in on Moffitt to battle for the race lead. On lap 142 Smith was there and began challenging Moffitt for the race lead.
On lap 154 Smith made his move, taking the lead from Moffitt as they raced out of turn four. A round of green flag pit stops soon followed, with Smith holding serve over Moffitt once the pit stop cycle was complete.
Smith maintained the lead as the laps wound down, but a caution with eight laps to go for the spinning truck of Stewart Friesen set up a restart with three laps left.
Taking the outside, Smith got a solid jump on the field to pull back into the lead by the time he exited turn two. Behind him Matt Crafton moved to second behind Smith, but he was no match for Smith’s fast Chevrolet Silverado.
“I knew that was going to be the winning move,” Smith said of the last restart.
Smith crossed the finish line .989 seconds ahead of Crafton, who was followed by Moffitt, Todd Gilliland and Ben Rhodes.
The 21-year-old native of California said two starts he made at Dover Int’l Speedway last year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series while driving for JR Motorsports paid dividends on Friday afternoon.
“It’s hard to compare my experience against who I am racing against. Usually they have years of K&N (series), years of Truck and handfuls of Xfinity races most of the time,” Smith said. “Luckily I was able to come here with JR Motorsports last year and we ran really good. I just could never finish it off to end with a good day.
“I think that definitely helped.”
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