Buescher picks up first truck win at Kansas

Kansas City, KS – James Buescher is having quite a season so far in NASCAR this year.

Less than two months after scoring his first Nationwide Series win in the season-opener at Daytona, Buescher claimed his first victory in the Camping World Truck Series with a dominating performance in the SFP 250 at Kansas Speedway.

Buescher, who drives the No. 31 Chevrolet for Turner Motorsports, led 103 of 167 laps in Saturday's race. After a late-race round of green-flag pit stops, he chased down Sprint Cup Series regular Brad Keselowski and took the lead from him with 11 laps remaining. Buescher's key to victory came with a four- tire strategy on his final pit stop.

Last weekend, Kasey Kahne gave Turner its maiden win in trucks by taking the inaugural race at Rockingham Speedway in Rockingham, NC. Buescher finished second in that race. It was the fourth time Buescher had placed second in the series.

"These Turner Motorsports trucks are pretty awesome," said Buescher, whose first truck win came in his 76th start. "Two in a row is saying something. So having our first win last week with Kasey and running second to him, we wanted to come here and win one for ourselves."

In February, Buescher happened to be in the right place at the right time to win the crash-filled 300-mile Nationwide race at Daytona. Buescher avoided a big wreck on the frontstretch and then miraculously pulled ahead of the field on the final lap before NASCAR displayed the caution flag to end the event.

Timothy Peters, the current truck points leader, finished second. Peters passed Keselowski for the runner-up spot with three laps remaining but crossed the finish line 5.32 seconds behind Buescher.

"Oh man, I feel like we won; it was pretty darn close all race long," Peters said. "We just had to keep up with the way the racetrack changed, with the sun coming out. We struggled on these [mile and a half] tracks last year, but we got our program together."

Keselowski settled for third. He was attempting to become the first driver to win a race in each of NASCAR's three national touring series at Kansas.

Nelson Piquet Jr. and Todd Bodine rounded out the top-five.

Ron Hornaday Jr., Justin Lofton, Parker Kligerman, rookie Ty Dillon and Miguel Paludo finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

The 250-mile race at Kansas featured five cautions, with four of them occurring within the first 63 laps.

Just after a restart on lap 41, Hornaday Jr. and Paulie Harraka made contact and spun. Harraka then collected David Starr, Brennan Newberry and Russ Dugger into the wall. Hornaday Jr. managed to avoid contact with the wall.

After the fourth race of the season, Peters remained the points leader, while Buescher moved to within four points of him.