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To the winner of a championship goes the spoils, and the right to celebrate their conquest however they please. In 24-year-old Ben Rhodes' case, the spoils of victory just so happened to be some liquid refreshment he could not quite hold, leading to a winning press conference that had to be seen to be believed.

After winning the 2021 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship by finishing third in Friday night's season finale at Phoenix Raceway, Kentucky driver Ben Rhodes celebrated his first NASCAR championship with plenty of alcohol in a celebration that included crew chief Rich Lushes having to drink beer out of a shoe. The results of that celebration were clearly evident by the time he got to the Media Center to speak to the press, as Rhodes -- clearly inebriated and in a good mood -- ended up being quite the quote.

"Let me say something here: Libations are good, championship's awesome. And ...," Rhodes said, trailing off. "This is gonna be the weirdest press conference ever.

"You know what, here's what I've got to say -- What was the question again? Wait a minute, I know what the question was. It was how did I get to, OK, so here's how this happened: My crew chief gave me this adjustment with some colder, with some lower air pressures because I said 'Hey, this isn't gonna happen. I can't win the race the way this is, they're beating me on the restarts.' He pumped me up, didn't work out the second stage, took me back down. So I watched Zane Smith and all these people drive away from me, I'm freaking out on the inside because we had radio issues and I couldn't talk to them.

"So I'm like, really angry. I was pissed. Pissed. And let me say something -- I've got the mic, so I can say it anyways -- So I was pissed. And here's how this went down: I said 'Zane Smith, this is checkers or wreckers, I'm gonna blow the motor trying to catch you.'"

Rhodes described him shifting down and up in the corners to try and push the engine to its limits by making engine noises. In an unaltered state beforehand, Rhodes had managed to catch Smith for the top spot among the Championship 4 drivers with this as well as the help of lapped traffic.

"I thought I didn't have any tire left because I was, um, sideways after every corner. And then -- wow, the mic got loud real fast -- I was sideways after every corner, and you know what, I had some tire left. Those other people started slowing down!", Rhodes said. "I said 'Wow, this is crazy!' So I passed him. Sheldon Creed tried to get all funky with me, and I said 'It ain't happenin' mamma jamma, buh-bye.' Went around on the outside in the resin, and I said 'Good-bye' ... Third place is cool with me because I got the championship. Wow, I talked really fast there.

"And I said 'You know what? Championship's cool.' Hope I answered that question. I'm pretty zen thanks to my good friend Bud."

Rhodes' breakdown of how he won the championship was hardly the end of it, as he touched on everything from his wife's reaction ("My wife looks really embarrassed. Are you embarrassed? We're Champions!", he said before sticking his tongue out) to the dental hygiene of his fellow statesmen in Kentucky ("I'm from Kentucky, not everybody has teeth ... That's not a good representation of Kentucky. Everybody has teeth in Kentucky! We drink fluoride in our water!").

At one point, Rhodes' can of Bud Light was exchanged for a bottle of water from his PR person, thought that hardly stopped Rhodes' alcohol-fueled adventure, as he did everything from count the amount of naps he's taken in his life on one hand to lamenting the state of consumer culture ("I don't create anything because I'm just consuming. I'm just a consumer.") to forgetting the name of a reporter.

In his sixth full season of Truck Series competition, Rhodes qualified for the playoffs by winning the first two races of the season at Daytona's oval and road course before winning the championship by virtue of consistency. Rhodes scored eight Top 5 and 16 Top 10 finishes in 22 races, and was running at the finish in every single race.