Buescher records first Camping World Trucks win at Kansas

After weaving through a 10-car crash in front of him on the last lap of the season-opening NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona, James Buescher had his first career NASCAR victory.

What he didn't have, until Saturday, was a win in his normal series where he competes for the championship – the Camping World Truck Series ranks.

Cross that one off the list.

Buescher led five times for 103 laps at Kansas Speedway en route to his first NCWTS win for Turner Motorsports. On the last pit stop sequence, under the green flag, Buescher had built enough of a lead where he could afford to take four tires, but his truck was seemingly riding on rails anyway. He passed Brad Keselowski, who he emerged behind on track, and secured the victory.

“This was the first track we (Buescher and crew chief Michael Shelton) ran together in the trucks,” he said. “This is good redemption. Two in a row for our team says something about the quality of our people. We wanted to win one on our own after Kasey (Kahne) won last week (at Rockingham). We finally got that truck win.”

Buescher had four previous runner-up finishes in the trucks before his breakthrough victory. Keselowski faded to third by the flag behind Timothy Peters, who recorded his fourth top five finish in as many races this season.

“I feel like we won,” Peters exhaled. “It was close out there. It was tough to keep up with the track. We got our program together.”

Keselowski, in his second start of 2012 for his own team, finished third ahead of Nelson Piquet Jr. and Todd Bodine. Bodine held off a late charge from Ron Hornaday for the final top-five position.

Peters leads the points by four markers over Buescher, with Justin Lofton, Ty Dillon and Piquet in the top five in the standings.

The series has a month hiatus before the next round of the championship, the Thursday night before the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series All-Star race, at Charlotte Motor Speedway.