Sauter led the final 17 laps of the NextEra Energy Resources 250, and was leading when the a caution for a last-lap wreck came out, ending the race.

Defending Truck Series champion James Buescher spun Jeff Agnew on the final lap, which caused the caution that prevented Sprint Cup Series regular Kyle Busch from making a move for the victory. Buescher finished 13th.

Sauter said, “I was having flashbacks of last year,” when he was turned by race-winner John King. They always say you want to be second going into the last lap. It just didn’t work out that way. … I’m not going to lie, I was happy to see that caution come out at the end. Just a wild race. Speedway racing is just crazy. … I’m just ecstatic to be in Victory Lane.”

Busch finished in the runner-up position for the third time. Ron Hornaday, Justin Lofton, Jeb Burton, and Ty Dillon rounded out the top 5.

The race was pretty uneventful until the caution came when Scott Riggs lost an engine.

The next caution came when Brendan Gaughan attempted to squeeze between pole-sitter Brennan Newberry and German Quiroga in Turn 3. The trucks made contact and hit the outside wall, causing an accident that collected 13 trucks. Burton, Tim George Jr., John Wes Townley, Ryan Truex, and Jason White were among those involved.

What looked like a disaster early on for Nelson Piquet Jr. — a spin on lap 56 — turned fortuitous as green flags clicked by to close the VFW 200 at Michigan International Speedway.

Piquet and crew chief Chris Carrier employed a brilliant — and race-winning — strategy to capture the Brazilian’s first victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The duo chose to stay out on the race track while the front-runners pitted under green, and milked a huge lead that ballooned to over 15 seconds with seven laps remaining.

“Me and Chris have been fighting for this win since the beginning of last year and we finally made it,” Piquet said. “It came in a dramatic way, but it came. It doesn’t matter how, but we did it and I’m really happy that the whole team stayed behind me this whole time. It is a little weight off my back and for the whole family. I am just living to do what our family always did, win races and win championships.”

Piquet, whose father Nelson is a three-time Formula One champion, led the first 13 laps, stalked by Kurt Busch early on. Busch, the 2000 truck series rookie of the year, had not started a NASCAR Camping World Truck race since June 30, 2001. Busch eventually took the lead on lap 17, and led a race-high 57 laps.

On lap 56, Piquet was racing Busch hard coming out of Turn 2. The two trucks tapped, with Piquet the victim — or so it seemed at the time. The spin forced Piquet to pit road, which put him on a different pit cycle than the rest of the field. That allowed the Brazilian to run the remainder of the race without a pit stop, a side effect that eventually led to Victory Lane.

Piquet is the first Brazilian to win a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race and only the second driver born outside the United States to win a truck race (Canadian Ron Fellows is the other). Piquet joined the series in 2010 after a two-year stint in F1. This 2012 season has been by far his most successful, with victories coming in the K&N Pro Series East, the NASCAR Nationwide Series and, now, the trucks.

“I want to prove to fans that I can win in any car that they put me into,” Piquet said.

Jason White (second) and Dakoda Armstrong (third) each posted career-best finishes. Parker Kligerman, who ran his first race with Red Horse Racing, and James Buescher rounded out the top five.

Piquet’s truck, from the outset, looked like a winning one — until the fateful spin.

“After they revived me,” Carrier joked, “we just had to push reset and take the situation at that moment. [I said] we’re going to regroup here. All the decisions at that point were no-brainers.”

After the spin, Piquet entered the pits for new tires and a tank full of fuel. Carrier deciphered that if Piquet went full-throttle for the remainder of the race, he’d be a lap and a half short on gas.

In other words, Piquet was forced to practice something quite foreign to a race-car driver: slow down. That’s exactly what he did. On lap 90, Piquet turned a lap of 184.952 mph. On lap 100, the final lap, he was going 158.580 mph.

“I knew that Nelson is very good at saving fuel,” Carrier said. “It comes very natural to him.”

The difficult decision — whether to pit or not to pit — did not come easy. With eight laps remaining, Carrier waved off the call for Piquet to enter the pits.

“We kind of just rolled the dice,” Carrier said. “We changed our minds three times in one lap.”

The win moved Piquet up to eighth in points. Timothy Peters, who finished 13th, remains the standings leader, but in a points tie with rookie Ty Dillon. Peters wins the tie-breaker thanks to his victory at Iowa in July.

The first two came on rural short tracks in Virginia. The third was a shocker — Friday night’s improbable victory in the NextEra Energy Resources 250 at Daytona International Speedway.

It took three attempts at a green-white-checkered-flag finish for King to win his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race in his eighth start in the series and his first on a superspeedway.

King was in the lead in the third overtime when Joey Coulter’s Chevrolet flew into the catch fence on the frontstretch after James Buescher’s Chevy turned sideways from contact with the truck of Ron Hornaday Jr. Coulter walked away from the wreck.

The resulting caution froze the field and made a winner of King, who still seemed amazed at his accomplishment when he talked to reporters after the race.

“This is feature win No. 3 for me — in my whole career,” King said. “It’s unbelievable. I couldn’t imagine being here, and we’re here.”

A hard crash on Lap 104 — four laps into overtime at the 2.5-mile track — took out race leader Johnny Sauter, who turned into the outside wall in the tri-oval off the bumper of King, igniting a multicar melee behind them.

“Golly, I flat freakin’ wrecked him,” King lamented on his radio after NASCAR red-flagged the race to clean up debris from the wreck.

Five laps and an 11-minute stoppage later, after a torrent of reassuring words from crew chief Chad Kendrick, King was in victory lane. Timothy Peters, King’s Red Horse Racing teammate came home second. Justin Lofton was credited with a third-place finish, followed by Travis Kvapil and Jason White.

“All I know was, the closing rate was real fast, and I couldn’t get off of him,” King said of the contact with Sauter’s car. “I’m a rookie, and I’ve never pushed (another car in the draft) in my life, and this is my first time at Daytona Speedway or any superspeedway.

“I apologize to him from the bottom of my heart. It wasn’t my intention at all.”

A caution on Lap 61 for a crash involving John King, Cale Gale and Mike Skinner provided a window for drivers to make their final pit stops. The trip down pit road failed to break up the dominant combination of Turner Motorsports drivers Buescher and polesitter Miguel Paludo.

Nelson Piquet Jr., the third of the Turner drivers, took the lead soon after a restart on Lap 69, and the Turner Chevrolets ran 1-2-3 as the race closed in on the 75-lap mark. To that point, Turner drivers had led every green-flag lap.

Lap after lap they maintained that order, Piquet leading Paludo and Buescher, all three trucks hugging the yellow line at the bottom of the track until White led a surge in the outside lane and grabbed the lead from Paludo on Lap 84.

As the trucks approached the stripe on that circuit, Paludo’s Chevy turned sideways and slammed nose-first into the inside wall, bring an abrupt end to the Turner triumvirate.

White led the field to the subsequent restart on Lap 91, with Piquet in second, Sauter third and Buescher fourth. White stayed out front until Parker Kilgerman’s Dodge spun sideways on Lap 95, scattering the back half of the field and damaging the trucks of David Starr, Ross Chastain, Dusty Davis and Bryan Silas.

Notes: Ward Burton finished eighth in his first start in any of NASCAR’s top three series since 2007… Paulie Harraka, who triggered an early wreck, got five straight “lucky dogs” (free passes to regain lost laps) as the highest-scored lapped car. He finished 19th in his first start in the series.

Team owner Frank Stoddard said:

After having many quality, veteran drivers this year we are really excited about giving some young guys an opportunity these next couple of weeks.  Jason has consistently run well in the truck series and he is a great spokesperson for his sponsors.  I look forward to trying to run Jason in some more races this season.

White added:

I’m really looking forward to making my first Cup start at Pocono this weekend. Racing in the Sprint Cup Series has always been a goal of mine and this weekend marks a major mile stone in my career. I would really like to thank Frank (Stoddard) for giving me this opportunity and GunBroker.com for their support.

White currently drives for Joe Dennette Motorsports in the Trucks series. He has made 116 starts since 2001 and has six career top 5s and 13 career top 10s. He’s also made 40 starts in the Nationwide Series. He has yet to score a top 10 in that series.

Most of the earlier favorites were involved in incidents, but Peters kept his fenders clean and was in position to make a move when it counted.

Top 5: Peters, Bodine, Dennis Setzer, Jason White, and Matt Crafton.

Nelson Piquet Jr, Stacy Compton, Johnny Benson, Donnie Nuenberger, and JJ Yeley finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

Notables: Aric Almirola (12th), Tayler Malsam (17th), David Starr (19th), Elliott Sadler (20th), Kyle Busch (22nd), Mike Skinner (24th), Ron Hornaday (27th), Rick Crawford (28th), and Ted Musgrave (31st).

Kyle Busch was involved in a lap one crash that occured when Aric Almirola took the field three-wide, causing Austin Dillon to get loose and spin. Nine trucks were involved.

Ron Hornaday was bumped, and spun into the wall by Ricky Carmichael. The accident damaged Elliott Sadler’s chances at winning.

While teams can still field Dodge trucks next season, the carmaker will not provide any financial support, said Mike Delahanty, senior manager of Dodge Motorsports.

This will not affect the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series teams, Delahanty said.

Currently, Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia’s No. 18, driven by Dennis Setzer, is the only full time racing team that receives financial support from Dodge. BHR-VA fielded two trucks since the beginning of the season, but one team folded prior to last weekend’s Camping World 200 presented by Honda Power Equipment due to financial constraints.

The other full time Dodge team, the No. 08 of SS Racing/Greenlight Racing, driven by Jason White, received no financial support from Dodge.

BHR-VA has talked to Chevy, Ford, and Toyota about switching next season.

Delahanty told ESPN:

We’ll have no factory-funded teams. When times are tough, there are certain things that are lower on the priority list than others. There’s a lot of Dodge trucks, engines and parts out there, [teams] may choose to run them. We just won’t be writing the checks to any teams.