Bell spins, but still wins in action-packed Kentucky Truck race

When Kaz Grala and Ryan Truex wrecked on Lap 114 of 150, Bell moved into the lead and spent the remainder of the race fending off a stern challenge from Brandon Jones.

Bell’s victory in Thursday night’s rain-delayed Buckle It 225 at Kentucky Speedway was his third on intermediate tracks this season (Atlanta and Texas were the others).

The win was the fifth of Bell’s career and he had to work for it. He had to rally from an early-race spin on Lap 27 and also had a slow pit stop for a lugnut issue.

“This is pretty special, man. This was an extremely tough race for me. We had our ups and downs in two practices yesterday and practice just didn’t really go smooth,” Bell said in Victory Lane.

“We had such a fast Toyota Tundra that I knew if the right circumstances came up, we could do it. Rudy (Fugle, crew chief) did a great job on top of the pit box and got me track position after I made a mistake and spun out.

“Thanks to everyone at Kyle Busch Motorsports. They build such fast Tundras – it’s a pleasure to drive them.”

Justin Haley finished a career-best third, Austin Cindric finished a career-best fourth and Noah Gragson rallied from a spin to finish fifth.

“You know it almost feels like a win for me because for the first time this season I felt like we got the finish we deserved,” Cindric said. “Just a really cool night. Getting to race Kyle Busch was a cool opportunity for me.”

With 15 laps remaining, John Hunter Nemechek – who had won the previous two Truck races – was running fourth when he hit the wall and fell off the pace.

Stage 2

Gragson dominated the second 35-lap segment to capture his first Stage victory of the season, holding off his team owner, Kyle Busch, in the process.

Justin Haley finished third, Chase Briscoe was fourth and Myatt Snider completed the top-five.

Shortly after the start of Stage 2, Bell and Ben Rhodes made contact, which sent Rhodes into his ThorSport Racing teammate, Grant Enfinger. Matt Crafton and T.J. Bell also got collected in the off-season.

Rhodes and Enfinger, who both started the race so strong, were unable to continue.

“I saw an opening on the bottom. This place is pretty much a superspeedway at a mile-and-a-half. A lot of drafting, a lot of really hard, crazy racing tonight,” Rhodes said. “I saw them go four-wide in front of me and they were making it work at that time and everybody else was doing the same thing on the restarts ahead, so I decided to go three-wide and side draft them down into the corner.

“We had good position on them, but I saw everybody start to come down on me, so I tried checking up as much as I could. We just ran out of room.”

Stage 1

Rhodes took the lead with two laps left in the first 35-lap Stage and held off a spirited challenge from Truex to claim his first Stage victory of the season.

Crafton finished third, Enfinger was fourth and Nemechek completed the top-five.

Rhodes took the lead in the race for the first time on a restart on Lap 27 with a daring three-wide move.

“They asked during driver intros who was going to take them three-wide on Lap 1 and I raised my hand,” Rhodes said over his radio during the Stage break. “It’s going to take some risky moves and I hope they don’t bite us tonight.”

Briscoe had to start the race from the rear of the field because he got no laps of practice on his backup car. The field was set per the rulebook when rain washed out Thursday’s qualifying session.