Talladega, AL (SportsNetwork.com) - Timothy Peters won his first Camping World Truck Series race of the season after he took over the lead on the final lap in Saturday's Fred's 250 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Peters, who started 26th, led a total of 31 laps. A caution for an incident involving Norm Benning in the closing laps set up a green-white-checkered finish. Peters held the top spot for the final restart, but Ryan Blaney nipped him at the line to lead the penultimate lap.
Peters grabbed the position back and then pulled away from the field on the last lap. He crossed the finish line 0.143 seconds ahead of his closest competitor, Tayler Malsam.
"It was just crazy," Peters said. "I have to thank Darrell Wallace (Jr.) for working with me all day. On the (second-to-last) restart, we got shuffled back and couldn't get to each other, but we worked good all day today."
When the series ran its season-opener in February at Daytona, a restrictor- plate track like Talladega, Peters finished 0.016 seconds behind race winner Kyle Busch.
"It feels good to come back to a superspeedway and improve our position by one to get into victory lane," Peters added.
It was Peters eighth career victory in the series, including his first at Talladega. He has won a race each year since 2009.
Spencer Gallagher finished a career-best third, while Tyler Reddick, the pole sitter, took the fourth spot. Blaney, who is Reddick's teammate at Brad Keselowski Racing, got shuffled back on the last lap and ended up placing fifth.
Matt Crafton remained the points leader, despite his 14th-place finish. Crafton holds a 16-point advantage over Blaney, who moved up to second. Wallace trails the leader by 28 points following his ninth-place run.
Blaney bounced back from a pit-road speeding penalty on lap 46. Reddick rebounded from two of those penalties during the race.
"It was a lot of fun out there," Blaney said. "I had a great truck. I made a mistake early speeding on pit road. But I got right back up there fast. Tyler Reddick did a great job pushing me back up there. Not a bad day for us. We moved up in the points."
Johnny Sauter, who is Crafton's teammate at ThorSport Racing, came to Talladega second in the point standings (-19), but Sauter had his race end on lap 25 when he suffered radiator damage caused by debris. His 31st-place finish dropped him to fifth in points (-36).
"It didn't feel like it blew up," Sauter said of his early-race incident. "The championship is over for us, and from here on out, we can just race like hell."
There are four races to go. The series will be at Martinsville, a half-mile track, next weekend. After Martinsville, the series will head to Texas and Phoenix before the season concludes at Homestead.
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