{"id":42762,"date":"2023-05-26T22:25:22","date_gmt":"2023-05-27T03:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=42762"},"modified":"2023-05-29T12:03:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T17:03:03","slug":"late-charge-gives-ben-rhodes-nascar-craftsman-truck-series-win-at-charlotte-motor-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/26\/late-charge-gives-ben-rhodes-nascar-craftsman-truck-series-win-at-charlotte-motor-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"Late charge gives Ben Rhodes NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win at Charlotte\u00a0Motor Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ben Rhodes, driver of the #99 Campers Inn RV Ford, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 26, 2023 in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo by Logan Riely\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Reid Spencer <\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n

CONCORD, N.C. \u2013 Grabbing the lead from Carson Hocevar after a restart on Lap 111 of 134, Ben Rhodes pulled away to win Friday night\u2019s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

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Ben Rhodes, driver of the #99 Campers Inn RV Ford, takes the checkered flag to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 26, 2023 in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo by David Jensen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Rhodes, the ninth different winner in 11 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races this season, also collected a $50,000 bonus for winning the first of three events in the Triple Truck Challenge, a bonus program that could mean $500,000 for a driver who can sweep all three. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think we were that good in practice,\u201d said Rhodes, who beat runner-up Corey Heim to the checkered flag by 2.398 seconds, as Heim, third-place Dean Thompson and Carson Hocevar battled for the second spot over the last 24 laps. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t qualify the best, and here it came to life at night\u2026 Oh, man, I had so much fun. This is so much fun. Charlotte is a track that we come to\u2014ThorSport Racing, we\u2019re based in Sandusky, Ohio\u2014we come to the North Carolina guys\u2019 house, and we like to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ben Rhodes, driver of the #99 Campers Inn RV Ford, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 26, 2023 in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo by David Jensen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The victory was Rhodes\u2019 first of the season, his first at Charlotte and the seventh of his career. In addition to the Triple Truck Challenge bonus, Rhodes is locked into the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoffs.  <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole season is so hard to put together,\u201d Rhodes said. \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievably hard, and it\u2019s only gotten more difficult over the years\u2026. A championship being locked in, I\u2019ll take that. The last three races have been so unbelievably hard on my team. We\u2019ve been wrecked in the last three and haven\u2019t had very good showings because of it.  <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019ll take the points\u2014thank you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hocevar held the lead for the Lap 111 restart but was trapped in the middle of a three-wide situation and dropped to sixth in the running order. Heim took second and Thompson third, while Hocevar rallied and swapped the third position with Thompson before finishing fourth.<\/p>\n

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Ben Rhodes, driver of the #99 Campers Inn RV Ford, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 26, 2023 in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo by Logan Riely\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMe and the 42 (Hocevar) and the 5 (Thompson) were probably the best trucks,\u201d said Heim, who led a race-high 49 laps and held off Hocevar to win the first stage. \u201cBut the 99 (Rhodes) just came along really strong, and once we got to second on the restart where the 42 got put in the middle there, I really thought we had a shot at it. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut it just proves that clean air is king here, but I feel like if I did a better job of getting by as soon as possible rather than waiting on a run, we might have had a better opportunity.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Notes: Thompson\u2019s third-place finish was a career-best\u2026 Hocevar led 43 laps and won the seconds stage by 5.746 seconds over Heim\u2026 Rhodes, the 2021 series champion, led 37 laps\u201425 in the final run to the finish\u2026 The final two Triple Truck Challenge races are scheduled for World Wide Technology Raceway on June 3 and Nashville Superspeedway on June 23.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interview:<\/h3>\n

NCTS race winner \/ Triple Truck Challenge winner – Ben Rhodes (No. 99 ThorSport Ford) – <\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/MEDIACENTER4CHARLOTTE26MAY2023TSRhodes.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Reid Spencer  NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. \u2013 Grabbing the lead from Carson Hocevar after a restart on Lap 111 of 134, Ben Rhodes pulled away to win Friday night\u2019s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Rhodes, the ninth different winner in 11 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races this season, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":42774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/GettyImages-1493644657-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-b7I","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42762"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42781,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42762\/revisions\/42781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}