Unlike many transplanted NASCAR competitors, Bill Lester doesn't call the Charlotte area home. But Lester, a Californian currently residing in Atlanta, would be pleased to be called a Tarheel.

Lester has a habit of showing his best stuff at Lowe's Motor Speedway, which on Friday night hosted at least the second-highest profile race of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season. Lester, who won the inaugural Bud Pole for the Quaker Steak & Lube 200, battled for the lead late in the event before settling for a solid, sixth-place finish aboard the No. 22 Checkers Toyota out of the Bill Davis Racing stable.

The University of California Berkeley engineering grad, who moved to from sports car racing to NASCAR in 2002, improved on a pair of 10th-place finishes - most recently a year ago at Gateway International Raceway. Lester is the only African-American driver currently competing on one of NASCAR's three national series.

"We were good from the word go.  The test here two weeks ago really paid off.  We had a good qualifying run and then when the green flag came out - it was good.  We fell back a little  bit - my truck was tight - but the guys made the right adjustments.  It was good after that," said Lester who tapped the wall trying to stay among the top three. "I'm really mad at myself because I tried to take down the fence in Turn 4."

Davis had a series career week at Lowe's as Mike Skinner won the Bud Pole and led the race with less than 25 laps remaining before a tangle with a lapped truck sent the 1995 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion to the garage.

The team's three drivers - Skinner, Lester and Johnny Benson - ran one-two-three at lap 90. Benson, forced to start at the rear of the field after damaging his Toyota during his qualifying lap, wound up a season-best fourth.

"At the start of the race we made a couple of changes and we were pretty excited about how the race was going.  We felt that we were going to run pretty good - and we did," said Benson.

Benson advanced to seventh in the point standings while Lester, 21st entering the season's seventh race, ended the night 15th. Skinner dropped to 18th.

"I don't blame anyone but myself.  It was more my fault - I knew the level of experience of everyone out there and I'm supposed to be smarter than that," said Skinner.  "He (Keselowski ) was committed down on the bottom. I guess I should just have given him a little more room."

Three drivers recorded career topping finishes: winner Kyle Busch, Lester and Kelly Sutton. Sutton was 15th after running as high as third in her Team Copaxone Chevrolet. Her previous best performance, 17th, came in this year's Daytona International Speedway opener.

Sutton, with winnings of $249,752, will break Tammy Jo Kirk's female career money won record of $257,545 by taking the green flag at Dover International Speedway next month. Kirk's all-time female start record of 32 races is due to fall at Michigan International Raceway. Friday's race was Sutton's 30th.

Kirk owns the best series finish by a female competitor: 11th in 1997 at Heartland Park Topeka.

Reorganization at Orleans Racing seems to be paying dividends. Steve Park finished fifth, the length of his Dodge's front bumper cover behind Benson. Park hadn't done better than 13th since winning the year's second event at California Speedway.

"He left the door open; I didn't think he would," said Park of the challenge to Benson that fell a few inches short. "We came off the corner clean and raced him to the end."

Teammate Brendan Gaughan logged his first top-10 finish of the year in a gritty, eighth-place effort that combined an on-track scratch-and-claw effort and great pit strategy called by crew chief Tony "Rambo" Liberati.

The finish put the No. 77 Jasper Engines & Transmission team into the owner top 30 point list, thereby guaranteeing Gaughan a spot in the starting field at Dover on June 3. Gaughan failed to qualify for back-to-back races at Atlanta and Martinsville.

"At the end of the race it was time to go," said Gaughan. "Rambo's personality on the radio so matches mine it felt like the old days. He's screaming and cheerleading. He's a Marine so he gave me some of that."

Dennis Setzer couldn't duplicate last year's Lowe's Motor Speedway victory but his seventh-place finish was the Morgan-Dollar team's fifth top 10 in the last six races. Setzer stands fifth in championship rankings after showing as low as 16th in points.

Teammate Tony Stewart didn't exactly have a happy 34th birthday - although Jimmy Spencer offered to serenade him during the drivers meeting. He failed to finish with driveshaft ails, possibly the residue of a Turn 4 spin.

Series champion Bobby Hamilton finished 28th after involvement in lap 35 melee triggered by contact in Turn 3 that sent Stewart's Tork Chevrolet spinning. Hamilton's Bailey's Dodge was among several vehicles suffering varying degrees of damage.

The finish was the worst for Hamilton since a 31st-place run at Martinsville Speedway in April 2004.