Daniel Dye experienced a regular season filled with ups and downs, but in the end, 12 points is what made the difference for the McAnally-Hilgemann Racing driver. That’s the margin by which the 20-year-old locked himself into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoff field with a solid eighth-place run in Saturday night’s Clean Harbors 250 at Richmond Raceway.
“Yeah, it feels better than Christmas now,” Dye said of advancing into the Playoffs. “Just the hard work these guys have put in, and like I talked about a little bit before the race, it’s really good to validate myself and the work I’ve been putting in to change up what I’ve been doing.”
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Clean Harbors 250 Race Results
Dye entered the night with a five-point deficit to Tanner Gray, who held the final place in the Playoff Grid. Gray, like Dye, had never made it into the NASCAR Truck Series Playoffs before, but after a 12th-place finish, Gray’s dreams of making the Playoffs will be shelved for another year.
While Dye ultimately found himself on the inside of the Playoff cutline by the end of the 250th lap at Richmond, it wasn’t a flawless night for the driver of the No. 43 Champion Container Chevrolet Silverado.
The Deland, Florida native started from the unlucky 13th position, but sensing the urgency needed to advance to the Playoffs, Dye was inside the top 10 by the end of the opening lap of the race.
Despite a variety of tire strategies, Dye would remain a fixture inside the top 10 through the opening 133 laps, and on Lap 134, he broke into the top five for the first time on the night, as he ran third after a wild restart. This is where adversity finally began to crop up for Dye.
Through a rash of cautions in the middle-to-late section of the race, Dye would get shuffled back further with each ensuing restart.
By Lap 149, he was fifth. And then ninth at Lap 156. At Lap 177, he was clinging to a top-10 position in 10th. On Lap 189, he teetered outside of the top 10, and by Lap 204, he was sitting once again in the unlucky 13th spot.
With Gray finally starting to make some headway through the field after gaining the free pass on a Lap 141 caution, the pressure was on Dye and his No. 43 pit crew to turn things around and they needed to turn things around fast.
The final pit stop did nothing to ease the tension for Dye, as he was blocked into his pit stall by Jake Garcia, who swung out wide to get around Dye’s truck. Dye would be mired back in 19th position as a result, while Gray would move up to the 12th position with a decent pit stop. It appeared that a complete momentum shift had occurred.
Dye, by virtue of his Stage Points scored in Stages 1 and 2 still had a one-point advantage on Gray in the Point Standings, but the margin was razor thin. However, on the ensuing restart with just 21 laps to go, Dye stopped the bleeding, and his No. 43 truck came back to life.
With some wild action near the front of the field, which stacked numerous trucks up, Dye, who was on the inside lane of the track was in prime position to swoop in and capitalize. Gray wasn’t as fortunate.
Dye rocketed back inside the top 10 with 17 laps to go, while Gray was caught in the log jam of trucks and fell back outside of the top 10.
In an instant, Dye had regained the momentum and was back in control of his Playoff destiny. He didn’t relent and would climb to the eighth position before the checkered flag would fly at the conclusion of Lap 250.
By pulling off the fevered dash in the closing laps, Dye became the first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver to bump their way into the Playoff field in the final race of the regular season since the adaptation of the Playoffs in the series. And it came at a track that Dye doesn’t feel suits him very well. Now, he’s ready to chase a championship at another track that he doesn’t like racing at — the Milwaukee Mile.
“Oh man, it’s so cool to have our Champion Container No. 43 in the Playoffs. I’m whooped. It’s not an easy race track, but just proud of everybody. Everybody has been working so hard trying to keep me under control and not too freaked out. Man, proud to be here,” Dye stated. “This is a racetrack I didn’t like last year, and I don’t like Milwaukee either, but we’re heading to Milwaukee. Let’s do it.”
Dye has vastly improved from his disappointing rookie campaign a season ago, where he only registered one top-10 finish in the No. 43 GMS Racing truck. Heading into the Playoffs, Dye already has a top-five, six top-10s, and a pole on his record, and he still has seven races left to pad the stats even further.
