Danville resident Timothy Peters wins Kroger 200 at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE – The moments of anxiety and worry quickly turned to anticipation and excitement in Timothy Peters’ pit stall as the laps winded down Saturday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway.

His truck, arguably the best over the final 100 laps, was never contested by another truck and the team put enough fuel in during an early pit stop for the Danville resident to finally cruise to Victory Lane.

Peters led the final 84 laps and finally broke through with his first Camping World Truck Series victory, winning the Kroger 200 at the same speedway where he won his last race in the Late Model series.

“Can you believe it that it’s here at Martinsville, 15 minutes to the house?” Peters said. “This place holds a special place in my heart. … I don’t want this day to end. The thing that sticks out in my mind is the day that Earnhardt won the Daytona 500, they show him riding around on a motorcycle late at night. I won’t be riding a motorcycle, but I’ll be out late tonight reminiscing.”

Peters had come close many times before at the 0.526-mile paper clip oval. In his previous seven races, Peters had finished in the top 10 three times and was close to finally cracking the top five. He was running near the front in the Kroger 250 in the spring at Martinsville before running out of gas late in the race. The victory moved Peters up two spots to seventh in the points standings, 37 points behind fifth-place Brian Scott.

Peters, who won the Bailey’s 300 in 2005, inherited the lead on lap 117 when Denny Hamlin made his pit stop. Hamlin, who had led 62 laps, was being caught by Peters on the last green flag run that Hamlin was up front. The Chesterfield native was able to fight his way back to sixth.

“I knew once we got up there we could stay there and even if the 51 had not pitted, it was a matter of time before we got by him. Timothy had run him down from about 12 truck lengths, but him pitting made life easier on tire wear and all that,” crew chief Chad Kendrick said. “The truck was really good. I can’t sit here and tell you it was perfect because it wasn’t, but I don’t think anybody has ever won a race with a 100 percent perfect truck. But, it was close. It was really close.”

Peters’ truck got solid restarts after the final few cautions and his lap times were consistently better than those of second-place Todd Bodine and others following. Even though Peters was praying for the race to remain caution-free over the final few laps, his truck was clearly the one to beat.

“He was better than I was,” Bodine said. “I used my stuff up getting back through the pack and just used it up.”

Points leader Ron Hornaday led the first 54 laps after beating pole sitter Mike Skinner to the line on the first lap. Hornaday finished fourth and increased his points lead to 224 – the largest ever in the Camping World Truck Series with four races remaining.

Colin Braun finished third after narrowly avoiding major damage on the final caution on lap 163 when he was working his way through lapped traffic.

“I think we were definitely catching the 30 truck, at least from what my crew chief was saying time-wise,” Braun said. “I wasn’t even really looking at the Timothy Peters truck, just trying to get by Bodine and see what’s up ahead.”

Kevin Harvick finished fifth after losing two laps midway through the race due to pitting under green after his left rear tire went down. Dennis Setzer, David Starr, Matt Crafton and Terry Cook rounded out the top 10.

Danville native Peyton Sellers qualified 16th and raced competitively for the first 10 laps before his left rear tire went down. Due to making an unscheduled pit stop and a pass-through penalty for having too many crew members working on the truck, Sellers found himself four laps down. He ran well with the leaders after the restarts before the engine blew up on lap 59.

“Something cut it on the inside of the tire,” Sellers said. “By the time we figured it out, we lost a lap trying to get down on pit road. Unfortunate for us, but that’s the kind of stuff you can’t have happen in order to win races and definitely, Timothy today had one of those days where nothing went wrong and he ended up in Victory Lane.”