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Camping World Trucks
TRUCKS: Piquet Jr. Breaks Through At MIS
Nelson Piquet Jr. scores first Truck Series win at Michigan...
Nelson Piquet Jr. did a masterful job of saving fuel over the closing laps and scored the first Camping World Truck Series victory of his career in the VFW 200 Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
Piquet, who is building the sort of resume that could push him toward the Sprint Cup Series soon, won the race by a whopping eight seconds over Jason White, who also was working a fuel-saving strategy over the closing laps.
Piquet had a 15-second lead over White with five laps remaining and slowed dramatically to preserve fuel for the final 10 miles. His truck ran 43 laps with its final fuel load.
Completing the top five were Dakoda Armstrong, Parker Kligerman and James Buescher.
“It’s finally an amazing moment that I made it in the Truck Series,” said Piquet, a Brazilian and a former Formula One driver. “I think if we were second or third in the championship (he’s ninth), I would have been more concerned. But I said, ‘Let’s just go for it,’ and we went for the win.”
Piquet described himself as “speechless. I know it took a long time (42 races). Me and Chris (crew chief Chris Carrier) have been fighting for this win since the beginning of last year. It came in a dramatic way, but it came.”
Carrier made the decision to pass up the final scheduled pit stop and take a chance on Piquet’s fuel lasting through the 100th lap. Later, he called Piquet an expert at conserving fuel.
Piquet, 27, also is a winner in the Nationwide Series. He is the first Brazilian driver to win in the Truck Series and the second Truck winner born outside the United States. Canadian Ron Fellows owns a pair of Truck victories.
Ty Dillon finished sixth and moved into a tie for the series point lead with Timothy Peters.
Kurt Busch and Piquet got together while racing for the lead on lap 57, sending Piquet into a spin and eventually into 15th place.
That sent Piquet to the pits for tires and a full load of fuel. Oddly enough, the misfortune set him up to run the rest of the race on the fuel gamble.
“I was just wishing for nobody to T-bone me,” Piquet said. “Everybody did a really good job to go around me. It was lucky, as it was that we could change strategy and go to the end of the race.”
Carrier said Piquet “did a miraculous job staying out of the fence. The strategy changed a lot pretty rapidly and pretty dramatically. I knew we could run approximately 40 green laps of fuel. A lot was depending on what lap times were and how much drafting there was and so on. This being the first Truck race on this surface and drafting was so predominant, there were a lot of unknowns and a lot of guesswork.
“Things played out for us like we thought they would.”
The day was an adventurous one for former series champion Todd Bodine, who was involved in two incidents, the second of which sent him to the garage for the rest of the race.
On lap 47, Bodine produced the third caution of the day as he spun at the exit of turn two after an encounter with John Wes Townley.
Five laps later, Bodine slipped as he exited turn four and slammed the wall, heavily damaging the rear end of the truck.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Piquet, who is building the sort of resume that could push him toward the Sprint Cup Series soon, won the race by a whopping eight seconds over Jason White, who also was working a fuel-saving strategy over the closing laps.
Piquet had a 15-second lead over White with five laps remaining and slowed dramatically to preserve fuel for the final 10 miles. His truck ran 43 laps with its final fuel load.
Completing the top five were Dakoda Armstrong, Parker Kligerman and James Buescher.
“It’s finally an amazing moment that I made it in the Truck Series,” said Piquet, a Brazilian and a former Formula One driver. “I think if we were second or third in the championship (he’s ninth), I would have been more concerned. But I said, ‘Let’s just go for it,’ and we went for the win.”
Piquet described himself as “speechless. I know it took a long time (42 races). Me and Chris (crew chief Chris Carrier) have been fighting for this win since the beginning of last year. It came in a dramatic way, but it came.”
Carrier made the decision to pass up the final scheduled pit stop and take a chance on Piquet’s fuel lasting through the 100th lap. Later, he called Piquet an expert at conserving fuel.
Piquet, 27, also is a winner in the Nationwide Series. He is the first Brazilian driver to win in the Truck Series and the second Truck winner born outside the United States. Canadian Ron Fellows owns a pair of Truck victories.
Ty Dillon finished sixth and moved into a tie for the series point lead with Timothy Peters.
Kurt Busch and Piquet got together while racing for the lead on lap 57, sending Piquet into a spin and eventually into 15th place.
That sent Piquet to the pits for tires and a full load of fuel. Oddly enough, the misfortune set him up to run the rest of the race on the fuel gamble.
“I was just wishing for nobody to T-bone me,” Piquet said. “Everybody did a really good job to go around me. It was lucky, as it was that we could change strategy and go to the end of the race.”
Carrier said Piquet “did a miraculous job staying out of the fence. The strategy changed a lot pretty rapidly and pretty dramatically. I knew we could run approximately 40 green laps of fuel. A lot was depending on what lap times were and how much drafting there was and so on. This being the first Truck race on this surface and drafting was so predominant, there were a lot of unknowns and a lot of guesswork.
“Things played out for us like we thought they would.”
The day was an adventurous one for former series champion Todd Bodine, who was involved in two incidents, the second of which sent him to the garage for the rest of the race.
On lap 47, Bodine produced the third caution of the day as he spun at the exit of turn two after an encounter with John Wes Townley.
Five laps later, Bodine slipped as he exited turn four and slammed the wall, heavily damaging the rear end of the truck.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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