JOLIET, Ill. – One year ago, Brett Moffitt made headlines by winning at Chicagoland Speedway after barely securing a sponsor in time to make the trip to the 1.5-mile Illinois track.
Friday night, he made more headlines at Chicagoland by winning the Camping World 225 with an all-white, unsponsored No. 24 GMS Racing Chevrolet Silverado.
Moffitt used a lightning-quick pit stop to take the lead before the start of the final stage, then methodically drove away from Brandon Jones over the second half en route to his second NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series win of the season.
The defending Truck Series champion led 72 of the final 77 laps, only surrendering the top spot when he made his final pit stop with 31 to go. Moffitt beat Jones to the checkered flag by 3.950 seconds.
“We had a really good Chevy Silverado tonight,” said Moffitt of his ninth career Truck Series win. “Everyone at GMS gave us a great truck and we went out and capitalized on it. Last year, my buddy Marcus from Fr8Auctions.com and we won the race for them, and this year we didn’t find a sponsor, but we went out and won the race anyway.
“It’s a shame, but hopefully this will draw some awareness to our situation and help us going forward.”
Friday night’s dominant performance followed up Moffitt’s win at his home track, Iowa Speedway, from two weeks earlier after Moffitt inherited the victory when Ross Chastain was disqualified.
This time, there was no question about who had the fastest truck on the property.
“We didn’t get to do all this before,” noted Moffitt as he celebrated in victory lane. “Tonight, we do.”
The final stage was only interrupted by caution once, when Spencer Davis washed up into Grant Enfinger exiting turn four at lap 79, causing both trucks to hit the outside wall and collecting Austin Self in the process.
Moffitt actually had a close call in that exchange, surviving contact with Self down the backstretch that damaged the right side of his truck just before Self was collected in the chaos that erupted off turn four.
“I thought our night was going to be over at that point,” admitted Moffitt. “I saw the 22 get outside of the 88, the 88 tried to block it … and once the 22 started spinning down the track, it was lucky he only got my door and not my right-rear tire.
“All in all, it was no harm, no foul and the truck stayed fast.”
Once racing resumed for good with 63 laps left, Moffitt shot to the lead with a push from polesitter Austin Hill and never looked back after that.
Though Jones stayed out two laps longer than Moffitt and tried to run him down after the final cycle of pit stops concluded with 25 to go, he had to settle for his fourth-career runner-up finish in his 43rd start.
“I think we just needed laps,” Jones lamented. “It’s heartbreaking to hear those lap times come across the radio, when they’re saying I’m a half-tenth to a tenth of a second faster, and just knowing that you have too big of a gap to overcome. I don’t know if we could have done something different with pit strategy, but that’s the most fun I’ve had in a Truck Series race in a long time. It was a blast tonight.”
Stewart Friesen finished third, ahead of the Toyota Tundras of Harrison Burton and Hill.
Todd Gilliland, Ross Chastain, Matt Crafton, Anthony Alfredo and Dylan Lupton completed the top 10.