Ryan Blaney finishes 11th in Kentucky Trucks race

Associated Press

SPARTA, KY.

Once the smoke cleared, James Buescher made sure the field knew his truck was the strongest.

Again.

Buescher won the wreck-filled NASCAR Trucks race Friday night to complete a Kentucky Speedway season sweep, using strong pit stops and restarts to stay in contention before pulling away en route to his fourth victory of the year.

Ryan Blaney, the 18-year-old who became the series’ youngest winner last week at Iowa Speedway, finished 11th after starting 16th.

Blaney, the son of Hartford native and Sprint Cup driver Dave Blaney, struggled to get through the mess, but stayed out during the fourth caution caused by Brennan Newberry’s wreck in the backstretch and led on the restart at lap 50. Blaney cracked the top 10 late in the race before falling back.

Buescher moved up a spot to second place in the season standings, four points behind rookie Ty Dillon. Parker Kligerman was second in the race, and Dillon finished third.

“Once we got this Chevy up front, it was on kill,” said Buescher, who led three times for 64 laps after starting eighth.

Buescher also won at the track in June.

Though Buescher seemed to have a strong truck, he had to wait a while before showing it dominance. That’s because the first half of the race featured five cautions totaling 34 laps, denying many of the contenders the long green-flag runs they wanted.

One of the incidents collected championship contender Timothy Peters, who fell one spot to third and 22 points behind Dillon. Peters took several hits on lap 55, first from Max Gresham and then from rookie John King after his No. 17 Toyota drifted down on the apron, impact that lifted the truck off its wheels.