In a Nutshell
Nick Sanchez finally sealed the deal.
The second-year NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver outlasted the field as they crashed behind him to win his first career race at Daytona International Speedway Friday night (Feb. 16). Sanchez came close to victory several times last season but never got the job done. This year, he wins the season opener and can now cruise to the playoffs after race one (assuming there are not more than 10 winners this season).
Defending regular season champion Corey Heim avoided the mayhem to finish second while Rajah Caruth finished a career-best third with his new team at Spire Motorsports. A pair of underdogs, Bret Holmes and Spencer Boyd, rounded out the top five with fourth- and fifth-place finishes, respectively.
Unlike last year, which was rain-shortened, the full 100 laps were completed this year. For good measure, the race went 101 laps, as one lap was needed for overtime. Unfortunately, with a combination of crashes and unnecessarily long caution periods, as well as a red flag for rain, the checkered flag flew almost three hours after the green flag dropped.
The Top Truckers at Daytona International Speedway
Winner, Most Laps Led (26 of 101): Nick Sanchez
Polesitter: Ty Majeski
Stage One Winner: Johnny Sauter
Stage Two Winner: Tyler Ankrum
Rookie of the Race: Corey LaJoie
Top Storylines of the Race
- Among the four drivers who failed to qualify, two were new teams attempting their first race. ARCA Menards Series driver Ryan Huff entered his self-owned No. 36 team into the race, and Mason Maggio drove the brand new Floridian Motorsports No. 21. They joined Jennifer Jo Cobb and Clay Greenfield on the sidelines for the race.
- There are a lot of new faces in new places to start the 2024 season, but perhaps none made a better impression than Ankrum. While Caruth also had a great finish with a new team, Ankrum found himself out front for 16 laps en route to winning stage two. After a subpar two seasons with Hattori Racing Enterprises, Ankrum joined McAnally-Hligemann Racing full-time for 2024 in a new truck, the No. 18. While 11th isn’t the result he hoped for, he is certainly off to a promising start.
- Several teams had collectively phenomenal efforts all-around at Daytona, including MHR. Spire’s new three-truck effort (plus Sanchez, as Rev Racing works out of Spire’s shop) and Niece Motorsports’ team with a brand new driver lineup both showed major speed in both qualifying and the race. It’s clear that there will be some powerhouse teams to reckon with as the season progresses.
- The race had an average speed of 98.933 mph. It is the slowest Daytona race in series history, and the only Daytona race since it was added to the Truck Series schedule in 2000 to not eclipse the 100 mph mark in average race speed.
The Winning Move
Sanchez had to pull several race-winning moves to take home the victory, as the race featured several late cautions. On every restart late in the going, Caruth got a very helpful push from teammate LaJoie that sent the two to the front on the backstretch.
However, Sanchez worked with those behind him, primarily Taylor Gray, to take the lead back from Caruth and LaJoie before the lap even ended (save for one time where Caruth led a lap before Sanchez took it back).
Sanchez successfully stayed ahead of the field on the white flag when Caruth pushed up the hill and collided with Jack Wood, who turned second-place Gray in front of the field. The ensuing pileup just about collected everyone else running on the track at the time, and Gray ended up turning over in the melee.
Sanchez and Caruth got away, while Heim just managed to avoid getting collected by teammate Gray. Everyone else in the pack took damage, including Holmes and Boyd, who both t-boned Majeski.
On pit road after the race, the pits were pretty empty due to the extremity of the crash. The only drivers who managed to make their way to pit lane were Caruth, Heim, and Holmes.
Playoff Rundown
I know, I know. Cue the Jim Mora quote. It’s only race one, but it’s still important to know playoff status because one driver has already locked in.
In the Truck Series, only 10 drivers make the playoffs compared to the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ 12 and NASCAR Cup Series’ 16. Sanchez is the only driver locked in by virtue of his win, comprising 10% of the playoff spots available.
However, it is worth mentioning that with a 16-race regular season for the Truck Series, it is entirely possible that 10 winners could happen – it hasn’t happened since the series adopted the playoffs in 2017 and expanded to 10 drivers in 2020. If it does, then it goes back to the winners with the most points.
So yes, every point matters to everyone. Not just regular-season championship hopefuls or fringe playoff hopefuls. Everyone.
Rookie Report
Author’s Note: If you’re a new reader of this column, welcome! For the purposes of this section, a “rookie” is defined as anyone who either A) is competing for Rookie of the Year honors or B) has competed in 10 or fewer total races in the Craftsman Truck Series.
Therefore, some drivers who may have multiple starts in the Cup or Xfinity Series could be considered a “rookie” in the Truck Series if they have less than 10 truck starts. This also allows ARCA drivers to be considered for Rookie of the Race if they impress.
There are only two full-time Rookie of the Year contenders this season, down from six last season. Both drivers, Layne Riggs and Thad Moffitt, crashed out of the race in The Big One early on lap 6. Therefore, giving Rookie of the Race out will likely be a difficult task throughout the year.
In fact, all the drivers who are considered “rookies” were involved in a crash due to the last lap pileup that took out almost everyone left. Cup Series driver LaJoie was credited with 20th place, higher than every other rookie in the field. Combined with the fact that he was crucial to helping Caruth score a great finish and likely could have helped him contend for the win, he earns this week’s Rookie of the Race.
No. 1 – Toni Breidinger (27th)
No. 7 – LaJoie (20th)
No. 38 – Layne Riggs (33rd)
No. 46 – Thad Moffitt (36th)
One Thought About This Race
For a 101-lap race, it certainly seemed like a lot of laps were run under caution.
That’s cause it was.
The race had a whopping total of 52 caution laps, compared to 49 green flag laps. Yes, you read that right. The Truck Series ran more laps under caution than it did under green.
Now if you remember back to this race last year, the same thing happened, there were more caution flag laps than green flag laps. However, the race was ended after just 80 laps due to weather. Since there’s no telling whether or not there would have been more green or yellow laps had it gone the full distance, that race gets a mulligan in my eyes compared to this year.
This race never had a flow. It didn’t from the start when the big one broke out on lap 6. From there, trucks kept crashing and spinning. And crashing. And spinning. Hell, we even had a short red flag because light rain began to fall on the track.
And in true Truck Series fashion, the race ended with a massive accident that cleaned out anyone who got lucky the first 11 cautions on the night.
Unfortunately, this is a product that comes with putting young and ambitious drivers on a superspeedway. If there is a bright side, it looked like most of the incidents were not a result of poor racing, something that plagued the series last year.
If anything, most of the crashes were caused by bad pushes as a result of inexperience on a superspeedway. Were the pushes aggressive? Sure. Were they dirty? Not really. Just an ambitious group of young drivers racing for the first time in three months.
On Thursday, NASCAR had a meeting with the Truck Series drivers to give them a basic message: Race more respectfully this season. And for the most part, respect was given. But it doesn’t change the fact that Daytona is still a wreckfest and there are now plenty of team owners whose wallets are screaming.
Many might still view Daytona as a red flag for what’s to come this season. The Truck Series is already on thin ice coming into 2024. While the racing on Friday can be attributed to typical Daytona, it certainly doesn’t help the series’ credibility by any means.
Talkin’ Truckers
Sanchez finds win much sweeter after 2023 heartbreaks:
Caruth talks about the last-lap incident and his career-best finish:
Holmes is happy with his top-five finish:
Gray calls out Caruth for last-lap crash:
LaJoie enjoyed Truck racing at Daytona for the second straight year:
Riggs was upset about the length of the DVP clock:
For plenty more Talkin’ Truckers at Daytona, visit Frontstretch‘s YouTube page.
Paint Scheme of the Race
This paint scheme was buns.
No literally.
Stefan Parsons and the Henderson Motorsports camp rolled off the hauler in a bright uniquely colored No. 75 with sponsorship from Ballpark Buns.
While Henderson has been known for its jet-black Food Country USA schemes throughout its history, or even more recently its partnership with Tide, the No. 75 hit it out of the park (full pun intended) with a brand new sponsorship and paint scheme.
Even better, despite being involved in a crash late, Parsons brought the truck home in an impressive sixth.
Hot dog.
Next Stop
I’ve got Georgia on my mind, and the truckers do too.
The Truck Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for a doubleheader with the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Christian Eckes is the defending winner of the race, ironically passing Sanchez in the final corner to win it.
The Fr8 Auctions 208 from Atlanta will take place at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Feb. 24. Coverage can be found on FOX Sports 1.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.