Grabbing the lead from Carson Hocevar after a restart on lap 111 of 134, Ben Rhodes pulled away to win Friday night’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
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.
“I didn’t think we were that good in practice,” said Rhodes, who beat runner-up Corey Heim to the checkered flag by 2.398s, as Heim, third-place Dean Thompson and Carson Hocevar battled for the second spot over the last 24 laps.
“I didn’t qualify the best, and here it came to life at night… Oh, man, I had so much fun. This is so much fun. Charlotte is a track that we come to—ThorSport Racing, we’re based in Sandusky, Ohio—we come to the North Carolina guys’ house, and we like to win.”
The victory was Rhodes’ 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.
“The whole season is so hard to put together,” Rhodes said. “It’s unbelievably hard, and it’s only gotten more difficult over the years…. A championship being locked in, I’ll take that. The last three races have been so unbelievably hard on my team. We’ve been wrecked in the last three and haven’t had very good showings because of it.