BRISTOL, Tenn. — For Jake Garcia, it was a case of stealing thunder.
For the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase drivers, it was blunder after blunder.
Driving the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford, Garcia took control in the third stage of Thursday night’s UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway and went on to win for the first time in his 94th start.
In the Chase opener for the series, Garcia led three times for 104 laps. On Lap 230 of 250, he wrested the lead from Stewart Friesen with an inside pass and held it the rest of the way. Garcia took the checkered flag 1.305 seconds ahead of Bayley Currey, who passed Friesen for the runner-up spot on Lap 247.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol
“I’m really proud of all my guys,” said Garcia, who started 12th on metrics per the NASCAR Rule Book. “They brought an amazing truck tonight. It was good today (in practice), but qualifying got rained out, so we got a good strategy that helped us come from the back, get some track position… and just kind of took off from there.”
Garcia ended a drought for ThorSport dating to Ty Majeski’s victory in the 2024 Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway, but it was hardly clear sailing to the finish. Garcia lost the lead to Friesen on a Lap 220 restart and spent the next 10 laps trying to regain it.
“Had some adversity on that last restart, but fortunately the truck was fast enough to overcome that,” Garcia said. “ThorSport Racing’s a really strong team, especially historically, so just proud of all my guys on the 98 team to be able to end that winless streak.”
Currey finished second in his first Truck Series start of the season. With Friesen third, Justin Haley fourth and Tristan McKee fifth — at age 16, the youngest driver in series history to score a top-five finish — no Chase driver finished better than sixth (Gio Ruggiero).
“I’ve still got it, I guess,” said Currey, who was driving the No. 5 Tricon Garage Toyota. “Just huge, huge thank you to everyone at Tricon, Toyota — just a great opportunity and glad we were able to make the most of it.
“I thought I was going to fumble it there at the end, but we were able to fight there and bring it home P2. Obviously wanted to win, but coming off the couch, I’m all right with it.”
In fact, the top four seeds in the Chase all experienced uncharacteristic difficulty. Top-seeded Layne Riggs started from the pole and won the first two stages wire-to-wire, leading the first 135 laps.
But Riggs was sixth out of the pits for the start of the final stage, and on Lap 156, he radioed to his crew that his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford had a loose right rear wheel. Riggs pitted for four tires on Lap 161 but lost two laps to the leaders and never recovered.
After contact with the damaged No. 1 Toyota of Nick Leitz late in the race, Riggs was forced to pit road again and finished 32nd, 16 laps down.
The two stage wins proved to be a godsend for Riggs, who retained the Chase lead by three points over Kaden Honeycutt. The driver of the No. 11 Toyota finished eighth despite an unscheduled pit stop with a loose wheel under caution late in the race.
“There was a lot of fighting tonight,” Riggs said. “I’m just thankful that we had a fast-enough truck that we won the first two stages and got some points, but we just came down pit road and had an absolute catastrophe of a stop.
“I don’t understand how we were that slow on the stop, and we didn’t get the wheels tight… I’m very frustrated. I feel like we had the truck to beat again.”
Third-seeded Chandler Smith suffered a speeding penalty at the Stage 2 break before losing air in a tire late in the final run. Smith finished 24th and leaves Bristol third in the standings, 30 points behind Riggs.
WATCH: Smith pits late with right-front vibration
The Chevrolet of fourth-seeded Christian Eckes suffered early front-end damage and finished 30th. Eckes dropped four spots to eighth in the Chase standings, 58 points out of the lead.
Behind Ruggiero, William Sawalich, Honeycutt, Majeski and Grant Enfinger completed the top 10.
The Chase resumes for the Truck Series on Sept. 26 in the Race to Stop Suicide 200 at Kansas Speedway (1 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Craftsman Truck Series garage, confirming Jake Garcia as the winner. The Nos. 5 and 38 trucks each had one lug nut not safe and secure and will lose pit-stall selection next Saturday at Kansas Speedway.