Trucks: Early engine failure gives Diego Yepez first last place finish in the Truck Series at Tucson

Diego Yepez picked up the 1st last place finish of his SCRL Rainbow Dash Truck Series career in Tuesday's NAPA 200 at the Tucson Raceway Park when his #77 Cristel / Mobil 1 / Copec Chevrolet fell out with engine problems after 8 of 25 laps.

The finish, came in Yepez's 2nd series start. Entering Season 3 of the Rainbow Dash Truck Series, Yepez had yet to make a name for himself in the SCRL, still looking for that first career win in the entire league. A finish of 18th in the season opener at Walt Disney led to some hope that this would finally be the series he would get that first win.

On race day Bright would roll off the grid 31st while starting last was the #12 Blake Racing Chevrolet of Riley Spurlytube who would trail the field for the first three laps before the first caution would fly, knocking the #10 A & G Coal Chevrolet of Macarron Asado to last for laps 4-8 before the #76 Action Performance Chevrolet of Yang Canario would trail the field for the 9th lap before the #20 Orleans Hotel & Casino of Steve Larker would take over last on Lap 10 and appeared on his way to his first last place finish in the SCRL Rainbow Dash Truck Series.

Around the same time Yepez was driving around in the Top twenty before his truck began to smoke as he made a sharp turn into the pits, his team reporting a terminal engine problem as the cause, and by the 15th lap, his truck was bumped down into last, scoring the last place finish.

Rounding out the bottom five happened pretty quickly after Yepez's retired, around the same time he went to the garage, the #75 Spears Manufacturing of Joshua Rush and the #94 Super 8 Motel Ford of Jimmy Potter also pulled off the track, both would be out due to transmission and camshaft problems. 36th would go to the aforementioned #20 of Steve Larker, 3 laps down and rounding out the bottom five in 35th was the #06 Greenfield Racing Dodge of Tim Randolph, two laps behind race winner Greg Lee.

SCRLASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first time the #77 has finished last at Tucson.
*This is the first time the #77 has finished last in a Truck Series race since May 23rd, 2017 when Jonathan Raines trailed the field after completing all the laps in the Season 2 Federated Auto Parts 250 at the Nashville Speedway.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
39) #77-Diego Yepez / 8 laps / engine
38) #75-Joshua Rush / 8 laps / transmission
37) #94-Jimmy Potter / 8 laps / camshaft
36) #20-Steve Larker / 22 laps / running
35) #06-Tim Randolph / 24 laps / running