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Bodine wins NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Sam's Town 400

Jun 9, 2007 - 4:07 AM By Bruce Martin PA SportsTicker Contributing Editor

FORT WORTH, Texas (Ticker) - Todd Bodine scored his fourth win at Texas Motor Speedway in the last six races when he used his front bumper to push leader Travis Kvapil out of the way with three laps to go.

That set up a green-white-checkered flag finish with Bodine winning Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Sam's Town 400.

Bodine's Toyota Tundra finished 0.188-seconds ahead of Mike Skinner's Toyota. Rick Crawford was third in a Ford F-150 followed by Ron Hornaday's Chevrolet and David Starr's Ford.

Bodine's win matched Brendan Gaughan's record of four wins at Texas. It was Bodine's first win in the last 24 races with his last victory coming in this race last year.

It was Bodine's 11th career win and he started the race on the pole.

"I hate what happened to Travis," Bodine said. "I feel bad about that but you can only block in one direction; you can't block two. I had the momentum and got into the back of him. I hate to take the lead that way but here we are in victory lane. I was going to take the outside and let him have the inside but he blocked me.

"Travis is a good friend but our car is here in victory lane where it belongs."

After a late-race caution, the green flag waved on the restart with five laps to go and six trucks on the lead lap led by Kvapil just ahead of Bodine.

Kvapil took the green and tried to get away from Bodine, who stayed glued to his rear bumper.

But with four laps to go, Kvapil was spun out by Bodine, who first tried to go high but was blocked and then went low. Bodine's Toyota got into Kvapil's rear to bring out the sixth caution period of the race to set up the third straight green-white-checkered flag finish at Texas.

"That's just truck racing," Kvapil said. "I got a good run around Turn 4 and tried blocking him. He got into me but I thought I had it saved. I'm really happy to have a fast race truck but I'm disappointed to get wiped out at the end."

With two to go, Bodine was in the lead and drove away from Crawford and Skinner, who were side-by-side. That allowed Bodine to drive off to the win.

Bodine overcame a fuel issue on lap 37 when his truck slowed on the race course after the fuel shut off in the corner. His crew was able to repair the problem and he set his sights back on the front.

Joe Ruttman ran into Clay Rogers, triggering a multi-truck crash that also involved Jack Sprague.

"It was my fault," Ruttman said. "I should have never been in that wreck."

Skinner now leads the NCTS points by 82 over Hornaday.

"We'll take top-fives every week," Skinner said. "The cautions just didn't fall right this year. We had new tires left over in the pits but it didn't do us any good. We didn't have the best truck tonight but we had a top-five truck."

The next race is next Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.