The Truck Series race at the Bristol Motor Speedway was nothing short of a nail-biter as Christian Eckes took the checkered flag ahead of Kyle Busch. However, after the event, Rowdy expressed his frustrations with one of the cautions that lasted too long and, in his opinion, “killed the race.” The caution came with more than 30 laps to go when Stewart Friesen was spun around momentarily but immediately regained control, but the caution lasted for several laps.

Had it not been for that, Rowdy probably would have won his second Truck race of the year. He ran near the front of the pack for almost the entirety of the 250 laps and swept the stages. However, the statistics were not in his favor since the past 4 years have seen a driver sweep the stages at the track but fail to go on and win the race.

Kyle Busch rues lengthy caution and lap traffic 

Busch got the better start-over in almost every single restart. Even when he did not, the veteran race car driver seemed a lot more attacking and took away the lead. However, the driver of the #19 got a mighty release when the race restarted with 25 laps remaining, and the #7 was left behind trying to keep P2 from a charging Zane Smith. That allowed Eckes to open up a sizeable gap, good enough to hold on until the end.

Kyle Busch would have passed him had the race gone on for one more lap, such was the close nature of the racing on Saturday. What further stalled his momentum was the traffic of the lapped cars right ahead of him and Eckes. Short tracks are tough to navigate because of such traffic, and it ended up costing Rowdy his second win of the campaign.

“I wish it went green. Damn it, they needed to go green. That caution killed the race because the lap traffic was going to be where the race was won, whether I was going to be better or get by and then he could get by me if I got scr***d up in it but lap traffic is gonna be where the race was gonna be at,” he said.

For the former Cup Series champion, this is a new role with Spire Motorsports. He is no longer the boss, so the buck doesn’t stop with him anymore. However, the 38-year-old believes that his duties per se have not changed so far.

Christian Eckes Holds off Charging Kyle Busch as He Claims 6th Career Win at Bristol

Not much has changed from KBM to Spire for Rowdy

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Speaking about his part in the team, Rowdy said that it was much of the same, giving them feedback about things that went wrong at the end of every race and why they could not win the race. This time, it was the lap traffic ahead of himself and the leader. The driver of the #7 Truck believes that they could have won the race, even with the caution, had there not been so much traffic near the start/finish line when the leaders came around to cross it on the final lap.

“The same thing. Just giving the best feedback, the most feedback I can, trying to give them what’s wrong and where we’re missing it so if we had clean air at the end, maybe we could have won but still, we need to have more in reserve to be able to drive up there and get the lead when we need to,”  he added.

Rowdy will now shift his attention to the Cup Series, where he has yet to win a race so far this season. The Bristol dirt race will provide a unique opportunity on Sunday, and Kyle Busch will be hoping to book his place in the last 16 in the early part of the campaign this year.

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