Hornaday Wins as Sauter is Black-Flagged - The WinStar World Casino 400k Review

It was a record-breaking night at Texas Motor Speedway for the 15^th annual WinStar World Casino 400k. As hoped, excitement abounded as this marked the first NCWTS race of the season sans Sprint Cup regulars.

Ron Hornaday Jr. won in his 48^th victory of 284 truck race starts. Hornaday capitalized on Johnny Sauter’s mishap on the final restart.  The trucks had lined up for a green-white-checker finish following Clay Rogers cutting a tire and bringing out the caution. Sauter was black-flagged by NASCAR after changing lanes before the start/finish line in an attempt to block Hornaday.

"I saw [Sauter] slide a little bit and then he just came down and cut in front of me to block a little bit," Hornaday said. "Then when he figured it out, he came back up there."

Sauter was understandably frustrated following the race and made a beeline to the NASCAR hauler to plead his case. It was in vain and Sauter was credited with a 22^nd finishing position, the last car on the lead lap. He led the most laps of the night and still remains atop the NCWTS points standings.

The record for most leaders, most lead changes and most cautions was set. The 10 cautions were chiefly the result of accidents involving many of the predicted race winners.

Defending champ Todd Bodine was involved in a wreck on Lap 68 with David Starr. Bodine got loose and collected Starr into the outside wall. The Onion blamed the wreck on himself saying, “I shouldn’t have been back there racing those guys.” Bodine finished a dismal 31^st, knocking him back to 13^th in the points.

On Lap 89, Austin Dillon got into the back of Matt Crafton sending the two hard into the wall. Crafton initially refused the mandatory ambulance ride in favor of throwing his arms up in the air as Dillon circled back around. Crafton finished in 29^th.

Dillon’s path of destruction continued on Lap 138 when he made contact with ARCA driver Steve Arpin and sent the two spinning across the infield. Dillon wound up with a 26^th place finish.

As the race concluded, the trucks of Johanna Long, Travis Kvapil, and Nelson Piquet Jr. piled up along the start/finish line. Long’s tire bounced off, then rolled back down the track hitting her truck, adding insult to injury.

The majority of your Top 5 finishers scored career bests including rookie Parker Kligerman in 2^nd, David Mayhew in 3^rd, and Brian Ickler in 4^th. Joey Coulter finished 5^th.

Ricky Carmichael, Ryan Sieg, Miguel Paludo, pole-sitter James Buescher, and Justin Lofton round out your Top 10.

The next stop for NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series is Kentucky Speedway on July 7^th.