‘Ship’s not sinking:’ Ben Rhodes unbothered by quick start slowing down

Ben Rhodes kicked off 2021 with back-to-back victories at Daytona International Speedway. First, he captured the checkered flag in the season opener on the classic oval track. Then, he parked his No. 99 ThorSport Racing Toyota in Victory Lane yet again after conquering the road-course layout. Since then, Rhodes has not hoisted a trophy. Instead, he has posted three top-five and nine top-10 finishes – giving him five and 11, respectively, overall. All but two of the top-10 results came in the first 10 races. In the last five events, Rhodes has finished 15th or worse three times. RELATED: Round of 10 track breakdown | Analyzing the playoff field “Whoa, there’s a fire,” Rhodes said Tuesday during the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs Media Day. “We got to put that fire out. I don’t know. I need to call my crew chief, though, because them are some stats. “I’ll tell you, we talked about it. We talked about it last week. We were honestly trying a few new things, so that was some of the bad finishes. … Drivers blame it on other things, so I’m going to blame it on something else.” Rhodes and his team did indeed have the benefit of being able to attempt new or different setups and whatnot without any major repercussions because they were already guaranteed a spot in the playoffs thanks to their early wins. Rhodes enters the Round of 10, which begins Friday with the World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM), ranked third in the 10-driver field. He has 19 bonus points. Of the three first-round tracks – Gateway, Darlington Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway – Rhodes has won at one before (Darlington in 2020). Otherwise, he was runner-up at Gateway in 2016 and fifth at Bristol in 2017. RELATED: Rookies Hocevar, Smith short on experience but long on confidence Rhodes is looking at the postseason as a complete restart, and he told crew chief Rich Lushes, who he met two weeks before the 2021 season began, to also treat it that way. “I said, ‘So I’m just going to disappear, you’re going to act like you don’t know me, and we’re just going to do everything over again. You’ll just have zero feedback from me because however you set them up at the beginning of the year was awesome,’” Rhodes said. “And that’s where we left it. I was halfway joking around, but then also pretty serious. Like just go what you know how to do, which is setting up race trucks.” Not the worst idea considering how well the newness of their first-year relationship paid off at Daytona. It also helps how calm Rhodes has remained, crediting his playoff history for the lack of stress despite the lack of recent wins. This year marks Rhodes’ fourth postseason trip, with the others having been 2017-18 and 2020. His best overall finish was fifth in 2017, and he’s already tracking a better outcome in 2021 – his two wins and average finish (8.9) are currently career highs. “Ship’s not sinking,” Rhodes said. “There’s no holes in it. It seems to be pretty solid. It’s made of metal. And we’re just going to keep on floating on.”