ROSSBURG, Ohio (AP) — Darrell Wallace Jr. won the Mudsummer Classic on Wednesday night on the dirt at Eldora Speedway for his second Camping World Truck Series victory of the year.
Wallace took the lead from Kyle Larson on the final restart on the half-mile oval and held on for his third career series victory. He gave Kyle Busch Motorsports its eighth victory in the first 10 races of the season. In addition to Wallace, Busch has won in all five of his starts and Erik Jones also has won for the team.
Toyota also extended its winning streak to 12 races.
“That’s so cool — on the dirt at Eldora,” Wallace said. “Really? Eldora? The coolest things about it is I came into this hoping we’d finish in the top five. I was worried about the Toyota streak, not to lie.”
Larson repeatedly hit the outside wall after giving up the lead, finally damaging his truck so much that he slowed to a crawl and stopped while running second with two laps left. He ended up 26th.
“Thanks to Turner Scott Motorsports for building a strong truck to make it last that long,” Larson said. “Didn’t realize how stupid I was driving. Darrell did a really good job. He was fast all day today and he ran close to the wall the whole time and never really hit it.”
Ron Hornaday took advantage of Larson’s problems to finish second. Ryan Blaney was third, followed by Ken Schrader, Ty Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, Jeb Burton, Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton and Austin Dillon.
Wallace led 97 of 150 laps in NASCAR’s lone dirt race in its top three series.
The 20-year-old Wallace won last year at Martinsville to join Wendell Scott as the only black winners on NASCAR’s national level, and took the race at Gateway last month.
Blaney took the lead in the season standings, moving four points ahead of Crafton.
“We struggled for forward drive a lot. We were getting killed off the corners,” Blaney said. “I’m happy to come out of here with a top-three finish and the points lead.”
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