Игровая Жизнь

After racing up to second-place during the middle stages of the race, Johnny Sauter raced back to fourth after problems during the final round of pit stops dropped the No. 13 SealMaster/Curb Records Chevrolet back to ninth with just 56 laps to go in the AAA Insurance 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

Sauter started ninth and charged towards the front at the drop of the green, cracking the top five by lap 60 on the tricky 0.686-mile oval and working his way up to second just after a restart at the halfway point. But a caution with 60 laps to go threw Sauter's night into turmoil. A loose lugnut cost Sauter four seconds on pit road, dropping him again all the way back to ninth. Sauter's impressive charge to the front over the final 50 laps resulted in his fifth top-five finish of the season, his third consecutive and fourth in the last five races.

"The SealMaster/Curb Records Chevy was really strong tonight and I thought we had a chance to get up there and win the race," Sauter said. "We had some problems on the last pit stop and it dropped us back and I had to really use the truck up to get back to fourth. When you push that hard and you have to run that lower groove to pass it just burns the right front tire off and we had make our way up through the pack twice tonight. We're disappointed because we come here to win and we had a chance to get it done tonight. I'm not a points racer at all but with the problems with the 51 (Aric Almirola, second in the standings) we gained a lot on them. I'm still really proud of my guys, they built me a great truck and we had a real good chance to win, we just need to work on our pit stops. If we can do that we'll win our share of these races and get ourselves in position to win the championship."

Sauter also fought issues with the heat, which was in the upper 90s with the heat index hovering above 110 degrees throughout the afternoon. Cockpit temperatures exceeded 135 degrees during the day's practice sessions, and although it cooled off into the 70s during the race it was still very warm in the truck.

"It wasn't as bad as Gateway last weekend but not by much," Sauter said. "I'm pretty beat after a day like today. Thankfully it did cool off a little once the race started and the sun went down. Hopefully we get a break from the heat up at Pocono next week."

Next up for Johnny Sauter and the No. 13 Curb Records Chevrolet is the Pocono Mountains 125 at the 2.5-mile triangular Pocono Raceway on Saturday, July 30. As a team, ThorSport Racing will be participating in its 328th race in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, moving into second-place all-time behind only Roush Fenway Racing with 353 races and into the lead among active teams. The green flag will fly shortly after 1 P.M. Eastern live on SPEED. The race will also be broadcast live on select MRN Radio affiliates nationwide and on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128 (XM104).