NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Ryan Preece had waited his whole career for a chance to race in a car as strong as the No. 20 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing.
Preece then went out and proved what he could do with top-notch equipment.
The 26-year-old Preece survived a green-white-checkered finish to win the NASCAR Xfinity race Saturday at Iowa Speedway for his first career victory.
Preece, running the second of a two-race deal with the powerhouse JGR team, started from the pole and held off Kyle Benjamin on three restarts in the final 17 laps.
Preece, the Connecticut driver who is a regular in the lower-division NASCAR Whelen Modified series, crossed the start-finish line less than a car-length ahead of Benjamin.
“To be honest with you, I believed in myself enough to do it,” Preece said of using his Xfinity budget for just two races. “It is very risky. I had multiple people in the business tell me that it was a little (riskier) than they would do.”
The 19-year-old Benjamin was a career-best second, followed by Brian Scott, Brennan Poole and rookie Cole Custer.
William Byron, who began a streak of three wins in five races at Iowa last month, finished ninth and Justin Allgaier was 20th after leading 106 laps.
Preece finished 17th in the series a year ago, with only one top-10 in 33 starts.
For this season, Preece went back to the Modified series — where he won a title four years ago — while striking a deal with JGR to run twice in one of the best cars in the series.
Preece was second to Cup star Kyle Busch in New Hampshire in his first shot with the No. 20 car.
On Saturday, he held off Benjamin to make his season-long gamble pay off.
“I knew what I felt like I had to do to get attention, to make noise, and I felt like these two races were my shot,” Preece said.
It was an encouraging finish for Benjamin, who started on the front row for the fourth time in as many races but finished above 16th for the first time.
“I’m really happy to finish second — I really needed that,” Benjamin said. “But to be as close as we were to winning, it kind of hurts. It makes you think about what you could have done better.
It was another gamble, by Allgaier earlier in the race, which helped put Preece and Benjamin in position for their thrilling finish.
Allgaier won the second stage and was leading when he decided to stay out on a caution about 75 laps from the finish.
The rest of the contenders went in for fresh tires and Allgaier’s No. 7 car, on old tires, quickly fell back while Preece grabbed the lead.
The hope for Allgaier was that a caution would allow him to put on a new set of tires, and thus have the advantage for the finish.
The yellow flag came too late though, as Allgaier was forced to pit for fuel just a few laps before Sam Hornish Jr. drew a caution.
Preece, who spent much of the race battling Allgaier for first, led 141 laps.
LONG POND, Pa. (AP) — Kyle Busch dominated another NASCAR race and was clearly the driver to beat until a late wreck knocked him out of the race.
Kyle Busch Motorsports still took the checkered flag.
Christopher Bell passed John Hunter Nemechek for the lead with six laps left and held on to win the Truck Series race Saturday at Pocono Raceway.
Bell chased down Nemechek and held off Ben Rhodes over the final two laps to win for the fourth time this season. Bell crashed out of one race but hasn’t otherwise finished worse than ninth in 12 races this season.
“Once I got to second, I kind of saw where (Nemechek) was struggling and started reeling him down,” Bell said. “I knew I needed to just follow him, regroup and rethink where I was going to pull the trigger at.”
Rhodes, the pole sitter, was second, followed by Ryan Truex, Nemechek and Johnny Sauter.
The 22-year-old Bell leads the series in wins, poles, playoff points, laps led and top-10 finishes in the No. 4 Toyota. He also holds an 18-point lead over Sauter and leads the point standings.
Busch, with two wins this season, led most of the race until he connected Justin Haley and spun into the outside wall. Haley, who won Friday’s ARCA race at Pocono, blamed himself for the wreck.
With 48 career Truck victories, Busch was on pace to make it 49 with wins in the first two stages. His departure forced drivers to consider how they would have fared had Busch stayed in the race.
“You don’t want to be the guy that wins and people say, ‘it’s because Kyle Busch wrecked,’” Truex said. “I would have liked to have raced him. I would have liked to beat Kyle Busch. So there’s no, what if. You beat the best.”
Bell, who won for the sixth time in 42 career races, would like to think he could have held off his boss.
“I think if I was out in front, it was going to be pretty tough for him to pass me,” Bell said. “But if he was out in front, it was going to be really hard for me to pass him.”
KMB won the Truck race at Pocono for the third straight year: Busch won in 2015 and William Byron took the checkered flag last year.
Power takes pole
LEXINGTON, Ohio (AP) — Will Power, still looking for a victory at the Mid-Ohio Sport Car Course, took his fifth pole of the season and fellow Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden qualified second for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200.
For Power, it was his third pole at Mid-Ohio and the 49th of his career to tie Bobby Unser for fourth among IndyCar drivers. Power has also been on the front row at Mid-Ohio for six straight years.
In eight starts at Mid-Ohio, his best finish is second, with five other top-five finishes.
“We haven’t won here,” he said. “It’s something I’d really like to do. I’ve qualified well here. I’ve run well here.”
Power won the Fast 6 qualifier Saturday with a lap of 126.672 mph compared to 126.407 for Newgarden as Chevrolet took the top two spots.
Team Penske earned both of the spots on the front row for the fifth time in 13 races this season.
“We’re in the front row with Team Penske so it’s a good team day,” Newgarden said.
Takuma Sato of Andretti Autosport drove his Honda to the third position. Local favorite Graham Rahal (Honda) of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing was fourth.
Rahal was in contention for the top spot until getting loose on a turn before regaining control.
“That’s as sideways as I’ve been in a long time,” he said.
Helio Castroneves (Chevrolet) of Team Penske qualified fifth and five-time Mid-Ohio winner Scott Dixon (Honda) was sixth for Chip Ganassi Racing. Dixon is the only driver to make the Fast 6 in the seven races in which the qualifying format is used.
The race is 90 laps around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile course for a total of 203.22 miles.
SLOW DOWN
Dixon’s teammate, Tony Kanaan, did not advance out of the first round of qualifying when his spin-out on the last lap impeded James Hinchcliffe, causing a local yellow caution. Kanaan was docked his two fastest times.
“We’ll overcome that. There’s always the race tomorrow,” Kanaan said.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Team Penske appears poised to control Mid-Ohio again. Power has done everything but win there. Newgarden won the last race at Toronto. Castroneves is always lurking and defending champion Simon Pagenaud will start seventh.
NOT SO HOT
After being held out of the last race at Toronto by Schmidt Peterson Motorsports management for poor recent performances, Mikhail Aleshin went off course and into the tire barriers during Saturday’s practice session. He later qualified last of 21 drivers. Aleshin is 17th in the series points standings with three top-10 finishes but has crashed out of three of the first 11 races, including two of his past three.
TAKING STOCK
Newgarden is fourth in series points after finishing in the same spot last year for Ed Carpenter racing. “We’re still learning,” Newgarden said. “We haven’t had a perfect year by any means but we’ve had a very good year.”
Rahal seeks another win on home course at Mid-Ohio
LEXINGTON, Ohio (AP) — Graham Rahal craves winning the Indianapolis 500 as his father, Bobby, did in 1986, but even if doesn’t happen he can someday retire from the IndyCar circuit with a sense of peace.
That’s because he won the Honda Indy 200 two years ago on what’s considered his home track, the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, about an hour’s drive north of his New Albany birthplace.
“If had won (elsewhere) and accomplished a lot and not won here, I feel like that’s something I would have regretted greatly or been very disappointed in,” Rahal said in preparation for Sunday’s race.
Some of that pressure is off because of his emotional win in 2015, when he drove in a helmet designed after that of his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes, who had won college football’s national championship seven months earlier.
“It’s nice to be back here and see all the support,” Rahal said.
Because he’s close to home, there is more expected of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver, both on the course and away from it.
Rahal, 28, is in demand all over central Ohio. He spent Thursday morning at an Ohio State football practice, getting a tour of the training facilities and chatting with coach Urban Meyer.
He also attended an event at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus in support of the Bobby Rahal Foundation and later had a meet-and-greet for his primary sponsor, Steak n’ Shake.
Rahal, who is married to National Hot Rod Association driver Courtney Force, admits he has few moments for reflection.
“I don’t stop thinking about business,” Rahal said. “It isn’t just racing anymore. It’s the dealerships and performance lines and everything else. I don’t really take enough time to sit down and think a different way.”
His focus is moving up the IndyCar Series standings. He is sixth in the point standings and qualified fourth for Sunday’s race.
“It’s a big weekend, an important weekend with the championship but for also for this being home for us,” he said Saturday.
Rahal has six career wins, his first in 2008 at St. Petersburg, Fla., making him the youngest to win an Indy car race (19 years, 93 days). His most recent victories were June 3 and 4 when he took both races at Belle Isle (Mich.) Park.
“We’ve been probably the most consistent car over the last eight races or so,” he said. “We have to figure a way to keep that going this weekend.”
Rahal isn’t the only driver who feels comfortable at Mid-Ohio.
“I know this a home course for Graham but it almost feels like a home race for us because we’ve had so much success as a team and myself,” said Scott Dixon, a five-time winner of the race.
Rahal is not taking anything for granted after talking to Meyer, who is expected to have another national title contender this season.
“I said to him, ‘You’re going to be dominating this year,’” Rahal said. “He said, ‘Never think that way even if you have all the talent in the world.’
“Then it hit me: You can have all the talent in the world, it’s getting the team working together and that’s what we have here. I’m very proud of that, proud to be a part of that, and the future for myself and our organization is pretty bright.”
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