{"id":29538,"date":"2016-08-18T13:15:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T20:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=29538"},"modified":"2016-08-18T13:15:06","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T20:15:06","slug":"ben-kennedy-fulfills-familys-nascar-tradition-with-bristol-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/ben-kennedy-fulfills-familys-nascar-tradition-with-bristol-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Kennedy Fulfills Family\u2019s NASCAR Tradition With Bristol Win"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NASCAR
Ben Kennedy, driver of the #33 Jacob Chevrolet, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 17, 2016 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/NASCAR via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UNOH 200 turned out to be one of the most pleasant and surprising finishes of the 2016 NASCAR Camping World Truck season, observing Ben Kennedy passing William Byron with 20 laps to go to earn his very first NASCAR Truck victory of his young career at one of the most unlikely of places, the Bristol Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

It might have been the 24-year old Kennedy\u2019s first victory, but his racing legacy is deep-rooted being the great-grandson of NASCAR Founder, William H.G. (Big Bill) France and son of current International Speedway Corporation CEO, Lesa France Kennedy.\u00a0 It signified the first France family member to win a NASCAR national series race in the sport they founded over six decades ago.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an easy win for Kennedy battling with the charge of Brett Moffitt right on his bumper in the final two circuits catching him once in his \u2018bump and run\u2019 shot that came up short allowing Kennedy to pull away seeing his first checkered flag.<\/p>\n

“I can\u2019t put it into words,” said Kennedy, who refused to be rattled, winning by 0.274 of a second.\u00a0 “Someone asked me earlier today what it\u2019s like going to Bristol for your first time and to win here is just so cool. I\u2019m speechless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thinking go as fast as possible on this last lap.\u00a0 I knew Brett was putting pressure on me from behind. \u00a0I appreciate him racing me clean. \u00a0This is just so cool. \u00a0These guys deserve it. \u00a0They work so hard.”<\/p>\n

\"
Daniel Suarez, driver of the #51 ARRIS Toyota, leads the field druing ar restart of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 17, 2016 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/NASCAR via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With only three races to go in the regular season before the Truck Chase Round of 8 starts in New Hampshire, Kennedy\u2019s victory puts his GMS Racing No. 33 team into the hunt for the title.<\/p>\n

“We put this deal together (with GMS Racing) a couple months ago and I never imagined \u2013 I never would have imagined going into this race that we would be here today,” Kennedy said.\u00a0 “I thought we were a top-15 truck or a top-10 truck, but to actually be here in Victory Lane means the world to me.”<\/p>\n

It was Moffitt\u2019s career best finish in the series and after the race was pleased with the way the race fell out in his favor.<\/p>\n

“We had a good truck, a strong truck all day,” said Moffitt, substituting for Matt Tifft, who is still recovering from recent brain surgery. \u00a0“We ran top-five, top-10 most of it. \u00a0He had just enough to get away from us on that last restart. \u00a0After that, we got to him once but couldn\u2019t get around.”<\/p>\n

\"Ben
Ben Kennedy, driver of the #33 Jacob Chevrolet, does a burnout after winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway (Photo by Sean Gardner\/NASCAR via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Daniel Hemric rebounded from being a lap down to finish third followed by William Byron, Johnny Sauter, Cole Custer, Christopher Bell, John H. Nemechek, Brandon Jones, and John Wes Townley.<\/p>\n

The race, strewn with nine cautions, lived up to the .533-mile, high-bank oval\u2019s reputation of being difficult causing numerous spins and crashes after the track revamped the lower groove.<\/p>\n

The Camping World Truck Series moves north for next weekend\u2019s Career for Veterans 200 at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday, August 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Kennedy passe William Byron to earn his very first NASCAR Truck victory of his young career at Bristol Motor Speedway. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470],"tags":[4097,3047,4813,127,4812],"class_list":["post-29538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","tag-2016-nascar-camping-truck-world-series","tag-ben-kennedy","tag-briston-motor-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-unoh-200"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NASCAR-Xfinity-Bristol-Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-7Gq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29545,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29538\/revisions\/29545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}