Photo by Bob Benko – Austin Hill crosses the finish line at MIS Saturday
Note: Austin Hill was a guest on the Morning Fury Show, broadcast live trackside from Michgan International Speedway on WMIC 660 AM and WTGV 97.7 FM with Eddie Fury and Dave Fredrick early Friday morning.
BROOKLYN, Mich. (August 10, 2019) – Last lap passes and late restarts are the common theme in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Corrigan Oil 200. This time the race needed an overtime finish as Austin Hill held off all the challengers for the checkered flag.
Tyler Ankrum lined up in the front row as the race went green with four laps to go on the restart after a Christian Eckes spin. But Ankrum never made it to the start finish-line as he was bumped from behind by Matt Crafton. Ankrum tried to save it, but spun down in front of the field to bring out the final caution.
After the cleanup, it was Hill up front for the green-white finish. He got a huge jump at the green flag and he would not relinquish the position to record his second win of the season. Sheldon Creed went low coming out of Turn 4, but could not finish the pass of Hill to finish second. Tyler Dippel, Brett Moffitt and Austin Wayne Self completed the top five.
“Man, I definitely did not want to do a green-white-checkered. I was cutting it kind of close on fuel,” Hill said. “I got a really good push out back by the 18 (Harrison Burton) that kind of propelled us and cleared us out front. I just had to start throwing blocks. Luckily, they started racing two and three-wide out the back. They gave us a gap out front and we were able to keep that gap. I thought the 2 (Sheldon Creed) was going to have a shot at it going into three, he had a really big run, but I was able to protect the bottom. Our Toyota Tundra was really fast today.”
The Corrigan Oil 200 served as the regular season finale for the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series. Teams had one final chance to pick up that crucial win and bonus points for the playoffs. Drivers were looking for any advantage to take the checkered flag.
Grant Enfinger won the regular season championship. He will be joined in the playoffs by Moffitt, Stewart Friesen, Hill, Chastain, Crafton, Sauter and Ankrum.
Ross Chastain started on the pole for the Corrigan Oil 200 and he was the truck to beat. He led all 20 laps in the first stage and the watermelon man was rolling. During his pit stop on the caution after the first stage, Chastain suffered damage when he was hit sitting in his pit stall. Johnny Sauter pulled out of his pit and got into the backend of Codie Rohrbaugh. Rohrbaugh spun around and hit Chastain in the right front to end Chastain’s day.
The action continued Sunday for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Consumers Energy 400. Rochester Hills, Mich. native, Brad Keselowski started on the pole for the second time at MIS with his first being in August 2017.
Kevin Harvick started second followed by William Byron, Alex Bowman and Clint Bowyer. Logano started on the pole for the FireKeepers Casino 400 in June and won the race.
The green flag to the Consumers Energy 400 dropped at 3 p.m. Sunday with coverage on NBCSports. Harvick won that race, outdistancing the rest of the field by a wide margin.
