Sauter claims Trucks title; Byron wins race
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[November 19, 2016]
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
Distributed by The Sports Xchange
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Johnny Sauter won
the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship with a
third-place finish in Friday night's Ford EcoBoost 200 at
Homestead-Miami Speedway, leaving race winner William Byron to
consider what might have been.
As Byron and Tyler Reddick battled for the lead, Sauter passed
Championship 4 contender Matt Crafton for third-place on Lap 119 of
134 at the 1.5-mile track. Sauter then pulled away to claim the
championship as Crafton faded to seventh in the closing laps.
Byron, the pole-sitter, claimed his rookie-record seventh victory of
the season to salve the wound of last week at Phoenix, where a blown
engine late in the final Round of 6 race knocked him out of the
inaugural NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase.
Byron, 18, won the series owner championship for Kyle Busch
Motorsports, the organization's fourth straight and fifth overall
owner championship in the series.
But the night belonged to the 38-year-old Sauter, who won his first
NASCAR championship 15 years after making his first national touring
series start in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
"It's not just me," said Sauter, who started 19th after a lackluster
qualifying effort. "It's the whole team -- everybody at GMS Racing.
We qualified bad today, and really, I was kind of worried about it.
But it felt pretty good in race trim. ...
"Just proud of these guys. Flawless execution on pit road tonight.
(Crew chief) Joe (Shear Jr.) made great adjustments to where I could
just kind of hang on. I'm not a high line guy, so I just elected to
keep doing my deal and found some pretty good grip around the bottom
of the race track.
"To be a champion ... five years ago my old man was down here when I
won the race. This is for him and for Joe Shear's dad -- great
Midwest racers. My family's here, my kids are here, my wife's here.
It's just an awesome night. Proud to be champion, and we'll do
everything within our power to represent NASCAR and Camping World as
best we can."
The handling of Crafton's truck eroded after the last restart,
making Sauter's championship pass all but inevitable.
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"I kind of figured it was a matter of time," acknowledged Crafton,
who fell short in his quest for a third series title. "We were just
really bad on that last run for whatever reason. We just went the
wrong way for whatever reason.
"It just got really tight on that last run. The run before that was
just a little bit free, and on that last run it just got really
tight on entry (into the corners)."
Behind Crafton, Christopher Bell and Timothy Peters came home eighth
and ninth to claim third and fourth, respectively, in the final
series standings.
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Byron charged from sixth to the front after a restart on Lap 115,
finally taking the lead from Reddick 10 laps later.
"It feels awesome," said Byron, who was also named Sunoco Rookie of
the Year in the series, as expected. "It's just -- it's incredible.
I mean this team has worked so hard all year. We just had an
unfortunate situation last week that we couldn't control, but, man,
they brought a good truck. Qualified on the pole.
"These guys just are awesome. God, I hate leaving this -- I just
hate this team not being together next year. It's just insane how
good they are and so many talented people on this race team. Can't
thank KBM enough, Toyota, Kyle and Samantha (Busch, Kyle Busch's
wife), everyone at KBM, (sponsor) Liberty University -- it's just
amazing."
Byron will drive a Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for JR
Motorsports next season. Bell, 21, will return to KBM with an eye on
the championship that eluded him this year.
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