Sparta, Ky. ? Bobby Hamilton became the first three-time winner this season on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, rallying to win the rain-delayed Built Ford Tough 225 on Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.

The 47-year-old Hamilton dominated most of the race, but still needed a dramatic rally on a restart following a caution with two laps to go. Hamilton dipped his Dodge inside Jack Sprague’s Chevrolet and held off Sprague by 0.179 seconds.

Sprague took the lead on a restart on lap 146 of the scheduled 150-lap race, but the race went back to caution on lap 149 when Rick Crawford’s truck spun into the infield. Series rules dictate that a race must finish with two green-flag laps, so the field ran under caution for three laps before green-flag racing resumed.

“I was able to hang with him (on the restart), but he was so strong, it was unbelievable,” Sprague said of Hamilton. “He was the class of the field.

“He deserved to win it more than I deserved to win it.”

Hamilton lapped all but 16 of the 35 other drivers who started the race. The former Nextel Cup driver led for 133 of the race’s 153 laps and moved up a spot to second in the series point standings, six points behind Dennis Setzer.

Hamilton led by as many as 8.4 seconds.