Joey Coulter scored his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory Saturday at Pocono. The sophomore driver for Richard Childress Racing made the winning move with seven laps remaining in the 50-lap race on the last restart.
Coulter dove to the inside of Turner Motorsports teammates Nelson Piquet Jr. and James Buescher at Turn 1 to take the top spot. He was able to pull away from there to secure the victory.
“I can't say enough about everyone at Richard and RCR,” said Coulter. “The whole time in my career, I've struggled on restarts. So I've put so much time into that. It's awesome to close the deal, and to finally put one together after all these years.”
Buescher finished second ahead of Piquet. Despite the dominant truck, Piquet fell short of his elusive first series victory and had an additional bit of controversy when he collided with Todd Bodine in the later stages of the race. Bodine, who appeared to cut across Piquet's bow, spun into the inside retaining wall off Turn 1.
“I don't know what to say,” said Piquet. “The straights are so long. To be honest, I wasn't sure how much more room I could have given. With another 2-3 laps, we could have finished second. It's another one we could have won.”
Buescher closed to within 15 points of championship leader Timothy Peters, who finished 22nd. Ty Dillon splits the two, currently second in points and eight back, after finishing sixth.
After a week off, the series resumes at Michigan International Speedway in two weeks.