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Gale 1st Time Truck Winner; Buescher Perseveres For Championship

Homestead, Fla. – In a thrilling finish at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, Cale Gale squeezed past Kyle Busch to score his first NASCAR Camping World Series victory and James Buescher persevered to claim the 2012 CWS championship.

“To come down to the last race of the year and to win after the up and down year we’ve had is a dream come true,” the 27-year old Gale said. “This is all I have ever wanted to do is drive race cars for a living. I’ve done it my whole life. To be able to win in NASCAR is a dream comes true.”

Gale had to do it the hard way, chasing down the hard-charging Busch on the final lap and squeezing the Sprint Cup star into the outer wall on the final lap of a green-white-checkered flag finish.

Regarding the finish, Gale said, “It is not my style but I knew if I could reach him a little bit, I could have the advantage. With the red flag and the green-white-checker, I was thinking how much it would mean to me and everyone around me to win this race. I have won in every series I have raced, and I could have lived without winning a NASCAR race, but it is all I have ever wanted to do. To get that chapter knocked out of my life is like a dream come true.

“I would have raced anyone that way. For a guy like me, it was my first opportunity to come down to the checkered flag in a NASCAR race. Kyle (Busch) is a racer and we have all seen hungry racers get an opportunity to take it. It is what you have to do in this sport. He owes me but when I saw the checkered, I did what anyone would do, although it is not my style.”

Grinding along the wall, Busch ended up in second place and wasn’t pleased with the outcome. “I hate it that the caution came out and then the red flag,” Busch said. “It came down to losing it on a yellow again, and I got drove into the fence. That’s it.”

The frantic finish came after a red flag came out with two laps to go due to a multi-truck accident. The grinding crash took out championship contender Ty Dillon, open-wheel hotshot Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney along with others. Dillon and Larson had been waging an intense battle for third place, and Dillon was waging a late race surge for the championship. They came together and in the melee, Blaney survived a head-on crash into a wall.

For Gale, he won for the first time in 32 tries and chalked up his eighth top-10 finish of the season. In winning, the Alabama driver became the 16th different winner in 2012 and the ninth first-time winner this season. Each category is a series record.

The victor drove the Rheem Chevrolet owned by Delana Harvick and fielded by Eddie Sharp Racing.

“We are for real,” Sharp said. “For Gale, to score his first win is something you never forget. I am honored to be part of this program.”

Joey Coulter took third in a Chevrolet and Nelson Piquet Jr. got fourth.

Miguel Paludo ended up fifth followed by Johnny Sauter, Parker Kligerman, championship contender Timothy Peters, Justin Lofton and Ross Chastain.

Buescher earned his first CWS championship with a six-point advantage over Peters. Coulter ended up third 19 behind and young Dillon dropped to fourth 24 back. The latter earned the Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award.

Dillon’s crew attempted to repair his damaged truck, but he lost five laps in the process, finishing far back in 25th place.

In gaining the championship, Buescher became the 12th different driver to win a CWS championship and at age 22, he was the second youngest to do so. A year ago the newly crowned champion finished third in the standings.

Buescher drove the Great Clips Chevrolet, and he earned the 12th championship for Chevrolet.

For Buescher’s Turner Motorsports team, the championship was its first. Owner Steve Turner fielded his first truck in the series in 2009.

Said the new champion, “It feels great (to win). It definitely was a nail-biter down to the end. We were in range of being the champion for most of the race, and one of the late restarts there Ty got a good jump on the field and was making a charge for the lead it looked like. But I was doing everything I could to keep our Great Clips Chevy going forward. It was pretty loose and really slick out there. But we did what we had to do to win the championship, and it worked out in our favor.

“I’ve got to thank everybody on this team, Michael Shelton, Steve Turner for a great year. Championship or no championship, it was going to be a great year, and to win the championship after winning four races this season makes it an incredible year.

Crew chief Michael Shelton said, “It definitely means a lot. Like James said, this is a dream come true. I guess three years since we kind of started the deal, and it’s all finally come together. I just can’t thank Steve Turner enough for believing in me and James and giving us this opportunity.

Added Turner, “You’ll always remember your first championship in NASCAR’s top three series. (Winning) Daytona this year was (with) the No. 31 was unbelievable. Kasey (Kahne) won our first truck race and broke the ice, and then every driver we seemed to be able to put into trucks this year has been able to win, and that shows that the shop — all the guys at the shop that work so hard on weekends and nights and are not with their families give these drivers what they need. That’s the most important thing to me.

About keeping track of the competition, Buescher added, “We were keeping somewhat an eye on what was going on. The fact that they weren’t leading makes each position a spot, so you kind of guess how many spots there are between you. You’re doing enough out there trying to hang on to your truck to do a head count on what position you’re running the whole time. “We pitted at the end for insurance reasons. When the others wrecked, I didn’t know if I hit any debris or not, but there was a lot of it, and parts flying everywhere, and the fact that the 17 was right around us on the racetrack, we didn’t have a lot to give up to go in and pit, so it was the safe call to go in, and it was definitely the right call to me.”

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