Ron Hornaday waves the checkered flag as he climbs from his truck in victory lane. (High Sierra Photo)

Ron Hornaday drove the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet to victory in Saturday night's Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway. Hornaday started 22nd on the night, avoided trouble when leader Mike Skinner was involved in a turn two crash with lapped traffic, and held off a determined Rick Crawford to take his second victory of 2006. Hornaday's previous victory came at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway in May.

Hornaday's lucky break was Skinner's bad break. Skinner, who had the dominant truck on the night, restarted the race in the lead on lap 126, but was buried deep in the field due to several drivers being trapped on the tail end of the lead lap when a caution came out in the midst of a round of green flag pit stops. On lap 129, Skinner turned sideways in a pack of trucks after he and Dennis Setzer came together. Skinner fought to regain control, but made hard contact with the nose of his truck with the backstretch wall. Hornaday took the lead and was never headed, although he held back a furious charge by Crawford and Brendan Gaughan over the final 9 laps.

"I saw Rick and Brendan on my back bumper and I was surprised," Hornaday said. "I had it on the floor the entire time those final laps - I never lifted it once - and those guys were still catching me. I thought we still had 10 laps to go because I never saw the flagman give the five to go signal so I was pretty relieved to see the white flag. Rick and Brendan got to racing for second, and I was hoping Johnny Benson would get in there and make it a three way race too. We finally got it loose enough on one of these big speedways. I can't thank everyone at Kevin Harvick Incorporated enough."

Hornaday credits a mid-season conversation with his team owner for the resurgence in his team after a slow start to 2006.

"We got off to a slow start this season," he said. "We had a loose wheel at Daytona, and there's nothing you can really do about that. But after that, we never seemed to run the way we did in 2005. I got a phone call from Kevin and he told me he and Delana would do everything they could to get this program turned around. It's all new people here from last year. All of those guys from the Truck team last season are working on the Busch program and the Truck team has a bunch of great young kids now. We still get a lot of help from Wally and the guys, but Stacy Johnson and everyone with us here, we're just having a great time right now."

For Crawford, he picks up his second consecutive runner-up finish in Tom Mitchell's No. 14 Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford, and it comes at the track which jumped up and bit him last season.

Jon Longo/High Sierra Photo

"We had a great truck here this weekend and once again we made some bold moves out there on the track to get us a second place finish," Crawford said. "I used to think about coming back here to Kentucky and what happened here last season a lot. But once we got here, I never once thought about it while I was out on the track. I could have looked left off turn two and looked at the spot where we crashed, but I never did. We had a great race with my good friend Brendan there late in the race, and were able to get second again. We're close to a win, all we need is one more spot. I'm a big Elvis fan, maybe we can pick that Elvis trophy up next week in Memphis."

For Gaughan, his third place finish in the No. 77 Orleans Racing Dodge was his best finish since a third-place run at Memphis last summer.

"How about that, we finally had to go to the media center after a race," Gaughan joked. "What an incredible night for the Orleans team. We had great pit stops all night long, and this thing ran the high groove perfectly all night too. Rambo (crew chief Tony Liberati) made great pit calls and we brought it home. This team has been under a lot of pressure. There's pressure from Michael Gaughan to run well and there's pressure from Dodge to run well. There's pressure to run well and attract a sponsor to this team. We found an old shock package that brought truck number one - Lonestar, the oldest truck in our fleet - to life. I'm telling those guys to JB Weld those shocks to this truck and we'll be good to go on the mile and a halfs the rest of the season."

Johnny Benson finished fourth in the No. 23 Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Toyota, his seventh consecutive top ten Truck Series finish.

Race winner Ron Hornaday's pit crew in action to keep their driver in contention for the victory. (Jon Longo/High Sierra Photo)

"We knocked the nose clean off if it when someone up front brake checked us on a restart," Benson said. "I got hit hard from behind and I hit the guy in front of me really hard. We had it all taped up, and even got up and led the race there for a while, even if it was by default under pit stops. We're not racing for points yet, we want to go out and win races, but we had a good points night and got the best finish we could tonight."

David Ragan finished fifth to score his first career top-five Truck Series finish in the No. 6 Scott's Ford, in front of defending series champion Ted Musgrave in the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota, Matt Crafton in the No. 88 Menards Chevrolet, David Starr in the No. 11 Red Horse Racing Toyota, Erik Darnell in the No. 99 Roush Racing Ford, and Todd Bodine in the No. 30 Lumber Liquidators Toyota.

The race was slowed by eight cautions for 33 laps, holding the average speed to just 118.110 miles per hour. The race got off to a slow start when Kraig Kinser had trouble in turn one on lap 2, collecting Justin Allgaier and Wayne Edwards in the process. Edwards was able to continue but brought out the second caution of the night when he crashed on his own in turn two on lap 23. Bobby East crashed in turn three on lap 29, while solo spins by Chad Chaffin and then Michel Jourdain on laps 59 and 123 also brought out the caution. After the Skinner and Setzer incident on lap 130, the final caution was caused by a slide through the frontstretch grass by Brad Keselowski on lap 139. All drivers involved in incidents were seen and released at the track's infield care center.

Todd Bodine continues to lead the series championship standings over Johnny Benson by 144 points heading into the next series event at Memphis Motorsports Park next Saturday night. David Reutimann slips to third, with Ted Musgrave and Rick Crawford rounding out the top five. With the win, Ron Hornaday moved to sixth in the standings, with David Starr seventh, Terry Cook eighth, Jack Sprague ninth, and Dennis Setzer tenth.

Next up for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is the O'Reilly 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park. TruckSeries.com will have complete event coverage starting Friday July 14 with practice coverage, and qualifying and race coverage coming on Saturday July 15.