Ben Rhodes at 9 pm ET on Thursday, June 23, 2016
Photo – Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images
Ben Rhodes is our guest on Fan4Racing NASCAR Weekend Preview on Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 9 pm ET. Call 929-477-1790 or tweet @Fan4RacingSite or @beberly18 with any questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast.
Last week, Ben Rhodes threw out the first pitch at a St. Louis Cardinals game, as part of a media advance to promote the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Drivin’ for Lineman 200 brought to you by Altec. This week, is the first time he’ll race 160 laps at Gateway Motorsports Park in his first full season with ThorSport Racing.
After eight of 23 races, Rhodes is now third in the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings. And although much of this season is all new for the NASCAR Next alumnus, in his track series’ debut at Iowa Speedway last weekend, Rhodes started tenth, raced consistently inside the top-five, even challenging for the race lead, and in the end finished fourth. That top-five showing was Rhodes’ Truck Series career best finish. The K&N Pro Series East champion knows what it takes to win and is anxious, yet patient for his first Camping World Truck Series victory with his No. 41 team.
“We had a strong run at Iowa last week, not exactly the finish we wanted,” says Rhodes. but it was solid. We needed that, especially after everything that went on last week with the fire at the shop. Unfortunately, we are not able to bring the chassis that we were originally planning on using for this race, it was a brand new chassis that got destroyed in the fire, but we are bringing our chassis that we raced last weekend in Iowa. I’m optimistic we’ll have another solid run this weekend. We are so close, just need to put it all together.”
Ten days ago on June 13th, ThorSport Racing had extensive damage to deal with after fire ravaged their facility in Sandusky, Ohio. Despite the setback, the No. 41 team is coming to the St Louis track with quite a few positives on their side. In addition to momentum from their strong run at Iowa, Rhodes’ experience on similar tracks in the K&N Pro Series and ARCA Racing Series with his crew chief, Kevin Bellicourt gives the team good reason to believe their momentum will continue.
“I feel like the flat race tracks are something we can really adapt well to in the trucks,” says Rhodes. “My crew chief and I, we have an excellent notebook built up from the K&N Series, and then we had a couple ARCA starts together, and we’ve done a lot of stuff together at the short, flat tracks. I feel really good about it. We’ll just have to unload and see how it goes in practice. Luckily, with the truck series, we get more practice, and we’ll see how it fares in practice, and just work on it.
“We’re still learning everything together; it’s Kevin’s (Bellicourt, crew chief) first time in the truck series, and my first time running full time in the series, so I’m seeing a lot of these tracks for the first time, like this weekend at Gateway – a lot of new stuff. So, we are just taking it one step at a time, and we gotta get some starts, and finishes under our belt.”
Besides earning his career best finish at Iowa, Rhodes also earned the pole position at Martinsville Speedway in the same No. 49 chassis, they’re racing this weekend. After starting that race in the lead, Rhodes then finished the race in eighth-place – one of his three top-tens this season.
Watch the Camping World Truck Series teams race all 200 miles in 160 laps of the Drivin’ for Lineman 200 at Gateway Motorsports Park on Saturday, June 25th. FOX Sports 1 television coverage begins at 8 pm ET with a green flag around 8:30 pm ET. Radio coverage is also available on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.
Check out these photos from Ben Rhodes St Louis area visit with Gateway Motorsports Park. (Photo Credits: John Bisci-Gateway Motorsports Park)