James Morvant rolled off P4 with a teammate in his pocket and a clear view of the front. The early laps were promising, but the race quickly devolved into a caution-filled grind. By the third restart, Morvant and Rodney Roberts controlled the front row. After letting Rodney lead for 14 laps, Morvant realized he had the faster car and pulled the trigger, moving into the lead to see what he could do in clean air.

Then the strategy got weird. Morvant opted to stay out on a mid-race yellow—a heavy gamble on track position over fresh rubber. He eventually pitted, fell to P3, and then sliced back to the lead in just seven laps. But with 35 to go, he took his last set of tires. It was an "all-in" move that left him zero room for error.

The error came anyway. With 22 laps left, Morvant spun. He managed a miraculous save, keeping the Cup car off the wall, but with no caution thrown, he was stuck wheeling a car with flat-spotted tires and a heated-up rear end.

After another late yellow, Morvant found himself buried in P9. He muscled his way to P6 in a single corner before the field bunched up again for a Green-White-Checker finish. During the first GWC attempt, the leader of the outside line lost it, and Morvant threaded the needle through the smoke to emerge in P4. On the final restart, he used the aero-wash to get the car ahead of him loose—a move that worked a little too well but cleared the way for him to jump into P3.

By the white flag, the car was a handful. The abuse from the earlier spin finally took its toll, and Morvant nearly binned it exiting Turn 2. That bobble gave Gary Czlapinski the opening he needed on the high side. The two dragged to the line in a door-to-door sprint, with Morvant securing P3 by a microscopic .008 seconds. It wasn't the win, but after a spin and a massive tire gamble, it was a hell of a recovery.

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