Kligerman’s move to the Nationwide Series and Kyle Busch Motorsports left a vacant seat in the No. 7 Camping World Truck Series entry of Red Horse Racing. John Wes Townley was announced as the driver to fill the No. 7 truck seat, and he’ll bring his Zaxby’s sponsorship along with him.

Also announced by Red Horse on Tuesday was the hiring of Mike Beam to serve as crew chief for Townley and the No. 7 team.

The 2013 season will be KBM’s second year of full-time Nationwide Series competition. Car owner Kyle Busch and brother Kurt Busch shared seat time in the organization’s No. 54 in 2012. The team posted one win with Kurt Busch behind the wheel.

“When you think of Kyle Busch and Kyle Busch Motorsports, you think of an owner and a team that have established a tradition of winning and pride themselves on it, so I feel honored to be given the chance to come in and continue in that tradition,” Kligerman said.

Kligerman raced full-time in the Truck Series in 2012, starting the season with Brad Keselowski Racing and them moving to Red Horse Racing after losing his ride at BKR. Kligerman also has limited Nationwide experience. He has 18-career starts in the series, including three in 2012.

Meanwhile, Townley inherits a truck ride that claimed two race wins in 2012. John King and Kligerman each drove the No. 7 to victory lane this past season.

“I’m a competitive race car driver, and I want to race and compete for wins,” Townley said. “Red Horse Racing has worked hard and continues to excel in the Truck Series. The success that this Red Horse Racing organization was able to accomplish last season is the same success we are looking forward to next year.”

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“I thought it was going to work out,” Kligerman said of the call to take two. “I was flipping blowers, doing everything I could to hold him off.”

The win made for a Texas sweep of Truck Series competition at the track in 2012 for Sauter. He won when the series last visited the Lone Star State earlier this year. The two wins are a couple of bright spots in what has been a lackluster year, for the most part, for the driver.

“It’s been a season of peaks and valleys, for sure,” Sauter said in victory lane.

Sauter took the lead from Nelson Piquet Jr. with 48 laps to go in the 147 lap event and led the way until Kligerman’s pit strategy got him out front after the late-race cycle of stops.

“I knew he only took two tires, so it was just a matter of time,” Sauter said of getting back by Kligerman to move back into the lead.

Kligerman was able to hold off the rest of the field to take runner-up honors.

“I hate finishing second,” Kligerman said. “This truck hates finishing second.

After Piquet started on the pole and led the opening laps of the race, series points leader and Piquet’s Turner Motorsports teammate James Buescher got to the lead on a restart following a caution that came out on lap 31, but lost the position when the yellow flag waved again on lap 64.

When the race went back to green following the lap 64 caution, the action went three and four-wide and Buescher sustained damage to one of his rear quarter panels. The damage made for an ill-handling race truck and resulted in the points leader losing positions on the race track for the remainder of the event. He wound up finishing 11th, the final truck on the lead lap.

Piquet finished third, and Kyle Busch was fourth after spending significant time on pit road with the hood up on his truck as his team worked on what appeared to be an ignition problem.

Ty Dillon finished fifth and cut into Buescher’s points lead, moving from 21 points back to within 15 points of the leader.

Finishing sixth through 10th were Matt Crafton, Joey Coulter, Todd Bodine, Aric Almirola and Timothy Peters.

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