Aric Almirola piloting the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction NASCAR Camping World truck finished in the third-place position in the running of the AAA Insurance 200 presented by JD Byrider race Friday at O’Reilly Raceway Park.

Almirola placed the No. 15 Billy Ballew Motorsports entry in the 15th-place position on the starting grid with a time of 22.763 seconds at a speed of 108.492 miles per hour for the 200 lap race.

Almirola advanced to the eighth-place position when the first caution flag fell on lap 39. The No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction team opted not to pit, while all the trucks behind Almirola came down pit road for four fresh Goodyear’s.

On the restart, Almirola had old tires and was unable to keep the truck up front and fell victim to going a lap down to the leaders.

After a long green-flag run, the caution finally flew on lap 94 and allowed for the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction truck to come down pit road for four fresh tires and adjustments. Restarting on lap 101, Almirola started double-file next to leader and teammate Kyle Busch. Almirola knew he had to stay with the top bunch of trucks to ensure he would be awarded the Lucky Dog on the next caution.

Fortunately, Almirola stuck with the top-four trucks and was in the position to receive the Lucky Dog when the caution flag flew on lap 161. Putting the No. 15 RedTop Auto Auction truck back on the lead lap, Almirola motored forward passing trucks two and three-wide to advance to the top-10. Two more yellow-flags flew over the field on laps 173 and 187, and Almirola had worked his way up to the sixth-position going into the final 10-lap shoot out.

For the restart Almirola put on the pressure moving to the third-place position where he and other competitors put heat on the leader. The four truck battle continued as the laps clicked off. Almirola battled for position all the way to the checkered flag driving off the turn four corner, securing a third-place finish in the AAA Insurance 200.

“We had a great truck. We started the race 15th tonight and drove up to sixth and the first caution came out and we were, ‘Pit? Don’t Pit? Pit? Don’t Pit?’” Aric Almirola said. “So we stayed out and I thought we were fine. We rode around in sixth there for a while and I don’t know if we had a right-front (tire) going down or what but all of a sudden we couldn’t go. We went from being right with the leaders to not even being able to run in the same ballpark as them. We got really, really tight and lost a lap and I was so disappointed but I knew we had a good enough truck to not give up. Once we put new tires on it, it was right back to the same truck it was. I ran right there with the leaders and was fortunate enough to get a caution and get the ‘lucky dog’ and we come back in and got four more tires and man, it was just like night and day difference. I’m really proud of Richie Wauters (crew chief) and everybody on this Billy Ballew Motorsports truck tonight. They give me awesome trucks every week and it’s a lot of fun to race..”

“You could tell everybody who didn’t have tires. That was fun. It was a lot of fun to race on. It’s a lot of fun when Goodyear brings a tire like that where the tire really falls off and tires mean a lot.”

“We were definitely fast enough to win. We just needed some more laps. That caution right there at the end really hurt us. I was a little bit better than (Dennis) Setzer and he was on the same tires that we were and I was on better tires than (Ron) Hornaday and (Mike) Skinner. Congrats to (Ron) Hornaday. Four in a row, that’s incredible.”

The NASCAR Camping World heads to the Nashville Superspeedway Saturday, August 1, 2009.