For the first time ever, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series raced at Knoxville Raceway. Despite the fanfare and excitement surrounding Friday’s Corn Belt 150, it ultimately left many fans and drivers frustrated as multiple wrecks resulted in fourteen cautions and four overtimes that dragged out the event. By the end, Austin Hill was able to survive the carnage to win his first race of the year.
Hill started thirteenth while Derek Kraus was on the pole following heat races. While the first two stages ran mostly clean as much of the incidents were for single-truck spins, the wheels came off in the final stage as it featured nine of the fourteen cautions. Kraus, who won the first two stages, found himself antagonising much of the field with his driving, resulting in him being turned by Grant Enfinger and Tyler Ankrum during post-race cooldown laps.
While Truck races generally run for one-and-a-half hours, the Corn Belt 150 was stretched to 2 hours, 25 minutes, and 55 seconds due to the litany of cautions, especially in the final laps as constant overtime sessions from crashes resulted in laps being added; what was supposed to be a 150-lap event would end at 179. Such a lengthy race drew comparisons to the Daytona Road Course event in February, which ran longer than the Cup Series‘ race there the previous year and is the longest race in series history by duration, and the Darlington race in May that reached 2:28:40.
After Hailie Deegan, Sheldon Creed, and Jett Noland (ironically, Deegan and Creed have extensive off-road experience while Creed and Noland have raced together in the Stadium Super Trucks) wrecked with two laps remaining to set up the first overtime, the largest accident of the night was triggered shortly after the restart with seventeen total drivers involved. Three more overtimes would take place, and Hill escaped with his seventh career win and first of 2021.
“Kind of thought we were out of it there on that restart when I was on the outside of the #38 (Todd Gilliland) and I fell back to like twentieth and I didn’t think we were going to make it back up,” said Hill. “Track position was huge and it was really hard to get around people. You had to kind of rough them up to get around them. I just kept my head down. […]