Hornaday wins Trucks Series race at Lowe's Motor Speedway

Ron Hornaday Jr. won his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series of the season and took over the lead in the Truck Series standings Friday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
It was the 40th Truck Series win for Hornaday. The three-time Truck Series champion is the leader in career Truck Series wins.
He has an 84-point lead over Mike Skinner after six races in the Truck Series season. Skinner, driving the No. 5 Toyota Tundra, was involved in a scary wreck at Lowe’s. After the race, Hornaday said he was more worried about Skinner than his lead in the Truck Series standings.
“I don’t like doing the points that way,” said Hornaday, driver of the No. 33 Chevrolet Silverado for Kevin Harvick Inc. “I was more concerned about Skinner’s safety. I heard he got upside down. Rick Carelli my spotter told me he got out and my wife ran down to the infield care center to make sure he was alright. I hate Mike Skinner on the race track but I love him as a brother outside of it. You don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”
Hornaday rallied from being a lap down and passed Matt Crafton for the lead in the waning laps of the race. Hornaday had to fend off a charging Kyle Busch to win the race. But his thoughts were with Skinner afterward.
“Going this fast at Lowe’s and having him, I didn’t actually see the wreck but I heard he got upside down and I seen him getting loose underneath the No. 13 (Johnny Sauter) and I got by it pretty clean,” said Hornaday, a former Saugus Speedway cbamp from Palmdale. “You hate to see that like that. Mike is going to be a tough competitor. He’s going to come back from this one.”
David Gilliland, a driver from Riverside, was sixth in the Truck Series race. He will be in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Open All-Star race Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Running in the Truck Series race gave him a little insight for the all-star race.
“I learned that the top groove comes in and is a good passing area,” Gilliland said. “I think we will see a lot of that tomorrow night. You have to go somewhere to pass. Lowe’s is very aero sensitive so you can run high to make up places. We should be able to run the middle to the top tomorrow where we ran the truck tonight.”

Photo: Mike Skinner slides on the side of his truck after an accident with T.J. Bell. Skinner, who led the first 27 laps of the race, walked away from the accident uninjured. (Photo Credit: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)