Sauter won the season opener at Daytona, and after a break of 43 days, won the second race of the season at the .526-mile short track. Sauter won for the eighth time in the Truck series and posted his first back-to-back victories. It was only the second time in series history that a driver has opened the season with back-to-back wins; the first was 2006 by Mark Martin.

Sauter’s ThorSport Racing teammate, Matt Crafton, passed Burton for the second spot with four laps left. Burton held third, but his top-five finish was clouded by an accident on Lap 103, when he turned Ron Hornaday Jr. into the Turn 3 wall while battling for the lead.

Timothy Peters and Darrell Wallace Jr. completed the top five.

Though Sauter and Burton were on equal tires at the finish–in terms of the timing of their last pit stops, at least–Burton had put more stress on his right rear as he worked his way through the field.

“We all knew today was going to be about tire management, just from the tire wear we saw (Friday in practice), moreso than ever before that I can ever remember here at Martinsville,” said Sauter, a perennial hard charger. “The first part of the race, we ran 80 percent, just trying to maintain and not lose too much track position, but still try to run as fast as we could.

“That’s really hard to do, because you’ve got to keep the people behind you behind you, and you don’t want to use too much of your equipment up. … With about 45 or 50 to go, I put the hammer down and was picking them off. I still can’t believe we did it.”

With two straight wins, Sauter holds a 12-point lead over Burton in the series standings.

“I really wanted to win,” Burton said. “We have ‘em covered half the race. We were really good at the beginning, and we adjusted to the track half way (through the race). Everything was good, and we still had ‘em covered, I thought, and then I used the right rear tire a little bit too early when I had to get back through there.

“That was my fault. I thought there was 40 (laps) to go, and there was actually was 60 to go, and I went a little harder than I needed to.”

About the contact with Hornaday, Burton’s explanation was short and simple.

“I ran in a little too hard and got into him, and there’s not much else to say about it,” Burton said.

In a battered No. 9 Chevrolet, Hornaday rallied to finish 10th, making use of two free passes under caution as the highest scored lapped car.

Divergent pit strategies put Kevin Harvick in the lead for a restart on Lap 151 of a scheduled 250, but Harvick, who had stayed out on old tires, gave up the top spot to Nelson Piquet Jr. one lap later and began a freefall back through the field.

Three circuits after a Lap 162 restart following the eighth caution, Wallace snagged the lead from Piquet and opened an advantage of more than three seconds, but both Wallace and Piquet opted to come to pit road for fresh rubber on Lap 198, under the ninth caution for Max Gresham’s spin in Turn 2.

That gave the lead back to Burton, who brought the field to green on Lap 203, with Wallace, Piquet and Harvick deep in the field on new tires. John Wes Townley’s hard crash in Turn 4 caused the 10th caution on Lap 206 and bunched the field for a restart on Lap 218.

Wallace restarted seventh on fresh tires and had worked his way up to third by the time Harvick tapped and spun Todd Bodine in Turn 3 on Lap 229 to bring out the 11th caution. By then, Sauter, who last came to pit road with Burton on Lap 146, had fought his way into second place and was challenging Burton for the lead when the yellow flag flew.

Behind the dramatic race to the checkers, James Buescher rolled to his first series championship, securing the title with a 13th-place run.

In a championship battle that generated little drama until the closing laps — when rookie Ty Dillon made a last-ditch move — Buescher drove a methodical race en route to the title. After Dillon wrecked with two laps left in regulation distance, Buescher finished six points ahead of series runner-up Timothy Peters, who ran eighth Friday.

Joey Coulter finished third in the season finale, followed by Nelson Piquet Jr. and Miguel Paludo.

Gale claimed the first victory of his career in a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race six laps beyond its scheduled distance of 134 laps. As he and Busch exited the final turn, Gale pinched Busch’s No. 18 Toyota against the outside wall, taking the checkered flag by a nose in a shower of sparks.

“I got drove into the fence,” Busch said. “That’s it. You saw it.”

Gale didn’t disagree.

“It’s not my style, but I knew that, if I could pinch him a little bit, I could get the advantage, and pretty much, that’s what I was thinking at that point,” Gale said. “A guy like me, it’s my first opportunity to come down for the checkered flag in a NASCAR race.

“Kyle’s a racer. He’s been in the same position I’ve been in. We’ve all seen hungry racers get an opportunity and take it. That’s what you have to do in this sport. He owes me, but I saw the checkers in the final race. That’s all I can say…

“When it comes down to the final straightaway to win at Homestead in the last race, and your first NASCAR win, I believe anybody would do it.”

Buescher started 17th, 14 spots behind Dillon (who entered the race 12 points behind the leader), but the driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet moved briskly toward the front, working his way up to eighth by the time debris from Bryan Silas’ contact with the outside wall in Turn 4 caused the second caution on Lap 43.

Buescher had dropped to 12th, the last car on the lead lap, when NASCAR called the third caution on Lap 104, again for debris. He held that spot after pit stops under the yellow and gained one spot to 11th before Max Gresham’s spin with 10 laps left brought out caution No. 4.

After a restart on Lap 130, Dillon charged into second place, 11 positions ahead of Buescher, but contact between the trucks of Kyle Larson and Dillon wrecked both as they fought for second and also collected the Dodge of Ryan Blaney.

Buescher pitted for tires after a 10-minute, 40-second stoppage and came home 13th after the two-lap sprint to the finish.

“Everybody on this team has done a fantastic job,” said Buescher, who won four times on the way to the title. “We had a shot at it last year, but we came into this year swinging and did a lot of work over the offseason. It definitely paid off. This is definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever done in racing.”

Despite the wreck that took him out of contention and dropped him to fourth in the standings behind Coulter, Dillon was philosophical when he talked about the final race.

“We just had to go out there and win the race and make something happen,” said Dillon, the series rookie of the year. “I just tried to make something happen there at the end, I got to second, and the points were looking good.

“We just missed that championship by a little bit, but I’m all right with everything that played out. We were going for it. We almost had it. We were trying to hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth and almost did it. But it’s all right. We’ll be back next year, fighting harder than ever.”

In a green-white-checkered-flag finish, Scott passed NASCAR wunderkind Kyle Larson to win Friday night’s Lucas Oil 150 Camping World Truck Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.

The victory was Scott’s first of the season and second of his career, his first win coming at Dover in 2009. But Scott provided only half the drama.

James Buescher and Ty Dillon, the top two contenders for the series championship, both had major trouble, with Buescher blowing a right front tire and crashing hard into the Turn 4 wall with less than three laps left.

Buescher finished 17th and Dillon 15th, to tighten the race for the title as the series heads for the season finale next Friday at Homestead. Buescher leads Timothy Peters by 11 points and Dillon by 12.

Passed by Dillon early in the race, Scott learned from the experience.

“I probably have to give a dozen roses to Ty Dillon,” said Scott, “because he was able to get by me on a restart earlier by holding me down and driving in deep through the corner and just keeping position on me — and I learned from it.

“Luckily I was able to come back and have the opportunity to do the same thing to somebody else, somebody that probably wasn’t expecting it… Fortunately for us, I was able to apply something I learned earlier in the race. I just went into the corner really hard, held him down and got him a little loose.”

Larson trailed Scott to the finish line, followed by Joey Coulter and Peters. Ryan Blaney completed the top five.

Friday’s race went green for the first 36 laps before it took on the character of a demolition derby. Six cautions, which occupied 33 of the next 42 laps, saw a rash of competitive trucks damaged on the treacherous race track.

Jason White collected Todd Bodine’s Toyota on Lap 49. Parker Kligerman’s Toyota broke loose in traffic on Lap 54 and waylaid the truck of Matt Crafton. Polesitter Nelson Piquet Jr., Johnny Sauter, Ron Hornaday Jr. and Miguel Paludo were involved in a four-truck melee on Lap 65.

Cale Gale crashed on the frontstretch on Lap 73 to bring out caution No. 6. Divergent pit strategies put Ryan Truex in the lead before Justin Lofton overtook him as the race neared the 100-lap mark, but a caution on Lap 102 shuffled the running order for a restart on Lap 109, with Peters and Scott leading the field to green.

Larson dived to the inside to pass the top two trucks on the restart lap, but one circuit later, German Quiroga drove too hard into Turn 1, locked his brakes and wrecked the trucks of Brendan Gaughan and Dillon.

NASCAR stopped the race for 13 minutes, 10 seconds to facilitate track cleanup. Back under yellow, Dillon’s crew worked frantically to patch the damage to the No. 3 Chevrolet, keeping Dillon on the lead lap.

Larson held the top spot until Scott passed him on Lap 152 of 153.

Note: Eric Phillips, who called the shots for the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota driven by Scott, won for the 27th time as a Truck Series crew chief, second most all-time. He’s one behind KBM general manager Rick Ren in NCWTS crew chief victories.

Johnny Sauter pushed Kligerman to the lead on the white-flag lap, and Kligerman held the top spot when a massive wreck on the backstretch forced NASCAR to throw the yellow before Kligerman reached the finish line.

The victory was Kligerman’s first after five second-place finishes during the past two seasons. It was a vindication of sorts for a driver who was jettisoned from his ride with Brad Keselowski Racing and found a new home with Red Horse Racing.

“When you get so close to something so many times, you can pick two paths,” Kligerman said of his second-place runs. “You can doubt yourself, you can doubt the situation you’re in, you can doubt everything around you. Or you can keep your self-confidence and look at the positive of what you did to get yourself in that position each and every time and say, ‘Hey, if I can do that, it’s just a matter of time.’

“I feel like switching teams — all the things that have happened — this team gave me a ton of confidence. Halfway through the season, it looked like my career was not on the upward slope I’d hoped it would be on. We were fifth in points, we weren’t really achieving a lot, we were getting slower as a team, and I felt like my career was looking at a position where I was not going to be a part of NASCAR much longer.

“There is a vindication ’cause we won. Winning fixes everything, I like to say.”

The truck Kligerman drove now has been to Victory Lane in three superspeedway races.

“This is a magic truck,” said DeLoach, who won for the 10th time in his 300th start as an owner. “This truck that Parker was driving has won Daytona twice. It won Daytona earlier this year with John King, and now it wins Talladega, so it’s a pretty special truck to us.”

Sauter ran second, followed by James Buescher and Ty Dillon. Timothy Peters came home fifth. Dillon maintained a one-point lead over Buescher in the series standings.

Buescher was just as happy to escape Talladega with no change in the championship battle, especially after saving his truck from spinning out of control on the next-to-last lap.

“I’m satisfied with the day,” Buescher said. “You always want to gain, but not losing is good, too. Definitely, with what happened in the tri-oval coming to the white flag, we could have been 25th. The fact that I was able to hang on to it and hang on to a third-place finish makes it a really good day.”

On Lap 46, contact from John Wes Townley’s Toyota turned the Toyota of Ross Chastain into the outside wall, igniting a chain-reaction wreck that also collected the trucks of two-time series champion Todd Bodine and Johnny Chapman (watch).

Fourteen laps later, a melee on the frontstretch damaged the truck of another former champion, Ron Hornaday, and knocked last week’s Las Vegas winner, Nelson Piquet Jr., and Donnie Neuenberger out of the race (watch).

Justin Lofton led the field to a restart on Lap 66, pulling Peters and Kurt Busch with him. Ten laps later Hornaday’s spin, the result of a cut tire, caused the fifth caution, with Lofton still in the lead. During the yellow, Kligerman’s team changed the battery on the No. 7 Toyota after the gauges registered a voltage drop.

Kligerman restarted 21st, but before the field completed two laps, the driver of the No. 7 Tundra had pushed the No. 23 Ford of Jason White from 18th to the lead.

White and Kligerman were running 1-2 when Hornaday spun again in the tri-oval, his right-rear tire shredded.

Peters, who started second, jumped to the lead past pole-sitter Cale Gale at the drop of the green flag and led every lap to roar to his second victory of the season and fifth of his career. The effort broke a tie atop the standings with top rookie Ty Dillon, who ran out of gas while running in the top five on the final restart and finished 21st.

Parker Kligerman, Peters’ Red Horse Racing teammate, matched a career-best in second with Ross Chastain third in his best finish in the Truck Series. Joey Coulter and Brendan Gaughan completed the top five.

Peters became the first driver to lead from green to checkered since Ron Hornaday paced all 225 laps at Louisville Motor Speedway on July 12, 1997. The 1-2 Red Horse Racing finish also gave team owner Tom DeLoach a fitting present for his 65th birthday.

“What an awesome feeling,” Peters said in Victory Lane. ” … I just thank the good Lord for being with me and letting me win two in one year. We’re working really hard, all the guys in the shop. The sky’s the limit right now.”

Peters withstood intense pressure on a handful of late-race restarts, most frequently from Brad Keselowski, the only driver racing in all three NASCAR national series this weekend. But the pressure from the Sprint Cup star subsided on the only attempt at a green-white-checkered finish that extended the race four laps past its scheduled 200-lap distance.

Kligerman slipped past Keselowski, his team owner until last week, on a restart with seven laps to go when the yellow flag flew for a final time for Gale’s heavy crash on the backstretch. That gave Peters a buffer in the form of a teammate starting alongside for the final restart.

“It’s my bad for getting a bad restart,” said Kligerman, making just his second start for Red Horse. “I consider myself a lot better restarter than that, so I’ll be beating myself up for the rest of the week, but congratulations to him. They’ve helped us so much.”

The lengthy clean-up for Gale’s wreck and ensuing overtime finish spelled doom for Keselowski and Dillon, who lined up third and fourth, respectively, for the final two-lap sprint. Keselowski’s truck was the first to stall out; Dillon’s sputtered to a near-stop moments later as Peters sailed away.

“I don’t know — really confusing. I should have had a good three or four laps of fuel left,” said Keselowski, who finished 25th in a quest for his first Truck Series victory. “I don’t know. Something happened, and we’ll have to go back and figure out what it was. We had a pretty good day going.”

The race was the first for a NASCAR national series on Bristol’s reconfigured .533-mile oval. Track officials opted to grind the top groove of progressive banking ground down with the desired effect of making the action closer. It was, eventually, after the first 81 laps were run without a caution period — the longest green-flag run to start a Truck Series race in more than seven years.

Peters boosted his points lead to 17 points over James Buescher, who finished seventh Wednesday. Dillon faded from his tie for the lead to third, 25 points off the top.

Buescher not only made up those two laps, he needed just one lap –- the final one –- to grab the lead and go on to win his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series-leading third race of the season at Chicagoland Speedway.

Leading just six laps in the entire event, Buescher passed points leader Timothy Peters and then held off Brendan Gaughan, who led 83 of the 150 laps, to win his second race in the last three events.

“We had issues early on where we kept losing power, so we decided to pit, changed the carburetor and the car came to life,” Buescher said. “From there, it was a matter of getting our laps back and going forward from there.”

And then, with a smile on his face, Buescher added, “We just had to pass 20 other trucks to win.”

Gaughan was looking to get his first Trucks win in nearly nine years, and it appeared he would do just that, given how strong he and his Chevrolet truck looked early on. After spinning his tires on a late restart, he valiantly rallied from sixth to settle for second place.

“I think about not winning (since 2003) every single day,” Gaughan said. “I thought tonight might finally be our night. But still, to run the way we did, and the great equipment Richard Childress gave us, this was really a great run, especially since we’re only racing a part-time schedule.”

Rather than risk wrecking on the final lap, points leader Peters wisely played it safe, finishing third. Matt Crafton finished fourth and Parker Kligerman rounded out the top 5.

“We did the right thing, used the right strategy and padded our points lead,” Peters said. “You can’t ask for much more than that – other than winning.”

Rounding out the top 10 were Cale Gale, Ron Hornaday Jr, Jason Leffler, Jason White and David Starr.

With six laps left, pole-sitter Justin Lofton slammed into the outside wall, bringing out the final caution of the race, setting up a shootout to the checkered flag between Peters and Buescher.

Gaughan, starting only his fourth NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race of the season, was hoping for his first NCWTS win since Oct. 11, 2003 at Texas Motor Speedway, his sixth triumph of that season. Unfortunately, he would come up short, extending his current winless streak to 130 races.

Bryan Silas’ spin on lap 8 brought out the first caution flag, right after Miguel Paludo and Ron Hornaday Jr. got together. Paludo bounced off Hornaday and slapped the wall, damaging the right side of his Silverado and forcing him to pit for right-side tires.

Eight laps later, although there was no resulting caution, Johnny Sauter bounced into Nelson Piquet Jr., causing heavy damage that cost Piquet a number of laps on pit road as the damage was repaired.

After getting back on the track, Piquet was forced back to pit road when the splitter on his truck snapped off, prompting a replacement and eventually causing him to miss 36 of the first 75 laps.

On Lap 45, Jason Leffler missed his pit box, forcing him to go all the way around the 1.5-mile track. Then to make matters worse, Leffler’s crew struggled to perform necessary service. As a result, Leffler went from being a top-five truck prior to his mistake to nearly two laps down.

Others also suffered pit stop mishaps, most notably drivers having issues finding their appropriate pix box, including series veterans Todd Bodine and Ron Hornaday Jr.

The yellow caution flag came out for a second time on lap 71 for debris. On the resulting pit stop, Gaughan came in only for fuel, allowing him to retain his lead over the rest of the field.

When Jennifer Jo Cobb brought out the caution flag for the third time due to a single truck spin, Buescher was forced to pit for a lengthy stop as his team replaced a faulty carburetor.

Chris Fontaine brought out the fourth caution of the race with 51 laps remaining following a solo spin.

Joey Coulter had one of the fastest trucks throughout the two practice sessions, qualified on the outside pole and remained in the top five for much of the first two-thirds of the race, but got caught up in a wreck with 44 laps left. His crew quickly repaired the damage and got him back on track (in 18th position) without losing a lap.

Four drivers were sent to the back of the field to start the race: Parker Kligerman and Chad McCumbee, both for adjustments after impound, and points leader Timothy Peters for and engine change and Johnny Sauter for missing the pre-race drivers meeting.

Several drivers reached significant milestones in their respective careers:

–Just one lap before halfway through the 150-lap event, four-time series champion Hornaday became the second driver in NCWTS history to complete 50,000 laps in his career. Hornaday finished 6th.

–Todd Bodine, who made his 200th series start, became the first driver to earn at least 200 starts in each of NASCAR’s three premier series: NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, finished 18th.

–David Starr became the fifth driver in series history to reach 300 starts. Starr finished 10th.

It certainly was memorable.

Peters took the lead off a restart with 10 laps remaining to dash to victory in the NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series American Ethanol 200 Saturday night at Iowa Speedway. The win was the first of the season, allowing him to increase his season points lead to 12 over Justin Lofton.

“I love Iowa and I love going to places where our results are OK and turning them into a best finish,” Peters said. “Today was definitely a milestone in my career, I feel like, because I’ve never sat on the pole and never led like we did tonight to win the race.”

The Red Horse Racing driver claimed his first pole position of the season. He became the third trucks driver in four races to win from the pole.

Peters achieved it in dramatic fashion. A late wreck forced a seventh caution with less than 20 laps remaining to set up the final restart between Peters and veteran Ron Hornaday Jr. When Hornaday spun his tires slightly at the starting lineup, Peters moved ahead, never looked back and pulled away for his fourth career win.

The last caution was a welcome sight to Peters.

“We just launched really well, and got a really good restart and beat him to the corner for a good start into turn 1,” said Peters, who was determined to improve his restarts from the Kentucky Speedway race in June. “He couldn’t get by. I was sitting there praying that the caution wouldn’t come out.”

Peters exacted a little revenge from Hornaday, who snatched the lead from him on a restart with 33 laps to go, diving to the inside of both Peters and Johnny Sauter.

“He just came out of nowhere,” Peters said of Hornaday. “He’s always good on restarts.”

Hornaday was just the third leader after more than three-quarters of the race was dominated by Peters and James Buescher, who was vying for his third win of the season.

The pair traded leads, distancing themselves from the field. Buescher was in control when an unexpected accident eliminated him from contention and helped Peters.

Buescher blew his right-front tire, sending him into the wall coming out of Turn 2 on Lap 135.

“We’ll take it,” Peters said. “I felt like that he and I did have the stronger trucks. It was going to be decided by him or I so in the end I’m glad I’m sitting here talking to (the media).”

Peters lead 87 laps, which was four less than Buescher. He praised the work of his crew for producing a powerful Toyota Tundra.

“I can’t thank these guys enough for what we accomplished tonight,” Peters said. “Hopefully this is one of many more.”

Peters mentioned the importance of a victory to enhance his ability to contend for the points title.

“It’s nice to get the monkey off our backs and get to Victory Lane finally,” crew chief Butch Hylton said. “We’ve been working really hard to do that.”

Hornaday placed second for his best performance of the season. He was encouraged by the finish.

“We made some adjustments in the race,” Hornaday said. “We made it tight. It was just not good enough.

“That was a big leap and gain for the racing team and the new truck we just built. It shows a good sign we’re on our track.”

Matt Crafton, who won the Coca-Cola 200 last year at Iowa Speedway, was third, giving him four top-four finishes at the 0.875-mile track.

Sunoco Rookie of the Year leader Ty Dillon was the highest finishing rookie. Dillon, who had top-two finishes at Iowa Speedway in the ARCA Series in 2010 and 2011, finished seventh after opening the race in 15th.

Keselowski passed Dillon with two laps left to run second, 3.805 seconds behind Buescher. Dillon came home third, followed by pole-sitter Matt Crafton and Timothy Peters, who grabbed the series lead from Justin Lofton.

Johnny Sauter recovered from a pit road penalty to finish sixth, followed by Joey Coulter, Jason Leffler, Ron Hornaday Jr. and 19-year-old Kyle Larson, who was making his series debut.

Buescher drove the same No. 31 Chevrolet he drove to his first NCWTS victory at Kansas in April.

“I think this race especially — both the truck wins we have were won in the shop,” Buescher said. “This is the third time I’ve raced this truck, the second time I’ve gone to Victory Lane with it. . . . The truck was phenomenal.

“We unloaded a little bit off and made some changes right away in practice this morning, and the truck came to life pretty good. We worked on it throughout practice, and I knew halfway through the first practice that we had a truck capable of running up front, possibly a truck capable of winning.

“Then, in the second practice, we found some more speed. I’m so excited to be able to get (sponsor) Exide Batteries to Victory Lane, to lead that many laps and dominate like that.”

A three-car wreck on Lap 69, involving two-time series champ Todd Bodine, Lofton and last week’s Nationwide Series winner Nelson Piquet Jr. put Lofton’s points lead in peril.

With a strong run to the inside in Turn 1, Bodine dived beneath Lofton, broke loose and knocked Lofton’s truck into the Chevrolet of Piquet, who slammed into the outside wall. Bodine blamed Lofton for not giving him enough room.

“I thought Justin was blowing up,” Bodine said. “I caught him so fast — I didn’t know what was going on, if he got loose off of (Turn) 4 or what. I caught him so fast, thought he was blowing up, so I went under him, and, obviously, he wasn’t blowing up. . . .

“He’s got plenty of room outside — he’s got to learn to give some space here. When you get that close and that tight on somebody, you’re just taking all their air, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

Both Bodine and Piquet retired from the race at that point, but Lofton was able to continue. Taking a wave-around under the sixth caution — called on lap 102 because of Tim George Jr.’s spin into the Turn 2 wall — Lofton regained a lap lost during repairs to his truck and salvaged a 14th-place finish to limit his damage in the standings.

Dillon took the lead briefly with a two-tire pit stop under that caution, but Buescher regained the top spot moments after a restart on Lap 108. All told, Buescher led 119 of 150 laps.

Peters leaves Kentucky with a four-point lead over both Lofton and Dillon, with Buescher in fourth place, nine points back.

Buescher pulled away in the closing laps for a convincing 5.320-second victory over Timothy Peters, who passed Brad Keselowski for the runner-up spot with three laps left in Saturday’s SFP 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Buescher earned his first win in the series, to go with his maiden Nationwide Series victory at Daytona in February. It was the second straight victory for Turner Motorsports, which sent Kasey Kahne to Victory Lane last Saturday at Rockingham, with Buescher running second.

“Turner Motorsports trucks are pretty awesome,” Buescher said. “Two in a row is saying something. Having our first win (for the team) last week with Kasey, and running second to him, we wanted to come here and win one for ourselves.”

Keselowski ran third, followed by Nelson Piquet Jr. and Todd Bodine.

“We needed a bit more speed to run with James, who was just lightning quick,” said Keselowski, who was attempting to become the 24th driver to win a race in each of NASCAR’s top three touring series. “We didn’t have anything for that, so hats off to his team and James himself.

“But we learned a lot, and hopefully we can take something away from it to help out Parker Kligerman (who drives Keselowski’s full-time No. 29 entry) and his efforts running for the championship, so for that I’m thankful.”

With the victory, Buescher narrowed Peters’ lead in the series standings to four points. Ron Hornaday Jr., Justin Lofton, Kligerman, rookie Ty Dillon and Miguel Paludo completed the top 10.

“He’s been a factor all this year this year and when we raced with him last year,” Peters said of the race winner. “He’s going be the one to contend for a championship, I feel like, and the RCR bunch are going to be ones to contend for the championship, and I think we are, too.”

Dillon is fourth in the standings, 14 points behind Peters and three behind third-place Lofton.

Driving his own truck for the second time this season, Keselowski surged past Buescher and into the lead shortly after a restart on Lap 105 of 167. Buescher pursued patiently until Lap 122, when he cleared Keselowski through Turn 4 to regain the top spot.

The longer the run, the more Buescher’s No. 31 Chevrolet flaunted its superiority. By Lap 140, with green-flag pit stops imminent, Buescher had opened an advantage of 5.4 seconds, with Peters closing in on Keselowski for the second position.

As the green-flag cycle began, Peters grabbed the No. 2 spot from Keselowski before heading to the pits on Lap 146. Buescher followed on Lap 150 and matched Peters with a four-tire stop. That left Keselowski, who took right-side tires only, in the lead, but Buescher quickly tracked down the No. 19 RAM and made the pass for the top spot on Lap 157.

The final 10 laps were a smooth cruise for the first-time Truck series winner.