Entering the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, all seemed to be business as usual. There weren’t any major changes to the entry list, no major news or storylines came out of its three-week absence from competition.
Then, a surprising development occurred in the hours leading up to the green flag on Friday, June 28, as it was found out that Faction46, a team formed just before the start of this season, would have a last-minute driver change. Dawson Cram would replace Thad Moffitt in the No. 46 for the race.
Moffitt, one of three Rookie of the Year contenders, took to social media to make a statement, stating the change was due to “circumstances out of my control.”
Moffitt and Faction46, both in year one in the Truck Series, have had less than desirable results. Some were due to bad luck, but by and large it was clear there were growing pains for the startup team and rookie driver.
The team politely declined comment to Frontstretch on the decision to bring Cram in.
Interestingly, the rear windshield of the truck displayed Cram’s last name instead of Moffitt’s – usually, with a last minute driver change, the original driver’s name remains on the rear windshield. That gives the impression that this was a pre-planned driver change that wasn’t announced until hours before the green flag in Nashville.
Cram finished 20th, recovering from a mid-race spin on a restart stack-up. That was Faction46’s second-best finish all year, only behind Moffitt’s 18th-place run at Darlington Raceway.
At a surface-level, this had all the looks of Moffitt and his team, Faction46, parting ways. It seemed that Faction46 bringing Cram in was the equivalent of what AM Racing did in the Xfinity Series when it benched Hailie Deegan in favor of Joey Logano at the Chicago street course. That later led to the announcement that Deegan and AM were parting ways.
This seemed no different. It appeared as if Cram was brought in to test whether the team’s issues were driver- or team-based. Cram’s finish gave the impression that it was a driver-issue and Faction46 would proceed with other funded drivers the rest of the year in hopes of turning its season around.
However, Moffitt did make it known that he was looking forward to “seeing you at Pocono (Raceway).” Whether that meant he’s still with Faction46 or working on another ride was unclear.
That was until the entry list came out for Pocono, and revealed that Moffitt would indeed be back behind the wheel of the No. 46 – but not for Faction46. Young’s Motorsports inherited the number and it was later revealed that it also acquired Faction46’s owner points and would field the No. 46 for Moffitt for the rest of the season.
Young’s has fielded one full-time truck this season for Mason Massey, and two part-time trucks for a couple of drivers throughout the season. Now, both Massey and Moffitt, both of whom aren’t used to having a teammate this season, will have the luxury of having a full-time teammate in each other for the remainder of the 2024 season.
With its owner points and the number that makes up its part of its namesake officially gone, Faction46 did not appear on the entry list. In fact, it appears the team’s days are officially numbered. The team’s X account has been inactive since June 14, and a quick look at its website will show … absolutely nothing.
It begs the question: What in the world happened?
Keep in mind, this was a team that received a great deal of hype going into the season. So much so, that the team touted its usage of popular content creators, primarily NASCAR YouTube personality Eric Estepp, who assisted in the revelation of the new team back in December.
Faction46 was introduced with the idea that it would utilize business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-focused marketing campaigns, rather unorthodox ways of marketing itself. The usage of content creators was reiterated when Estepp noted that he was hoping to provide behind-the-scenes content of what an upstart truck team’s day-to-day operations would look like.
It was pretty obvious (at least to me) since the team formed that Moffitt would be revealed as the driver. Moffitt has driven the No. 46 nearly his entire career as his way of establishing his legacy in the Petty lineage (he is the grandson of Richard Petty and nephew of Kyle Petty). Not to mention, “Petty blue” was a prominent color on renderings of both Faction46’s truck and logo, even before Moffitt was announced as the driver.
Fan interaction was also to be a heavy aspect of the team’s operations, as it would place a great emphasis on utilizing social media, giveaways and other fan activations such as at-track activities.
The team had a technical alliance with Niece Motorsports. On the surface, this wasn’t a bad thing. Faction46’s trucks would be built and housed in the Niece shop, similar to the way Rev Racing’s trucks for Nick Sanchez are built and housed in Spire Motorsports’ shop due to its technical alliance (one that was inherited from the sale of Kyle Busch Motorsports).
But if this is your first time hearing of such an alliance, I certainly wouldn’t blame you. There was no real big mention of any alliance between the two teams, and it didn’t seem like the two teams really worked together at all – at least, not in the way that other teams with alliances work together (Rev/Spire, Wood Brothers Racing/Team Penske, Kaulig Racing/Richard Childress Racing, etc.).
There was no other indicator that Niece and Faction46 worked together outside of Niece building the trucks. And funnily enough, with Faction46 seemingly shuttering, Niece has turned around and restarted its part-time fourth team, tapping Conor Daly to drive three races in the No. 44 truck.
Anyway, that dependence could possibly explain on-track performance. At-track results were certainly a big issue. Moffitt only finished inside the top 25 twice in 12 races. Five of those races ended up in results outside the top 30. In a series with 36-truck fields.
Those results are already an issue, but then you have to look at the issue that a lot of races this season haven’t had full fields. Therefore those finishes outside the top 25 and top 30 look even worse.
It feels as if Faction46 relied too heavily on that technical alliance with Niece and was thinking it was going to get trucks that performed at the same caliber as Niece. That was clearly not the case.
Off-track had some issues of its own. It’s aforementioned intent to interact with content creators went cold almost from the start. Estepp made one behind-the-scenes video when the team unveiled Moffitt as the driver, but did nothing more.
Estepp explained in a recent YouTube video that he realized “maybe they weren’t going to grant quite as much access as I originally hoped,” which led to very little content about the team itself.
Sponsorship as a whole was kind of all over the place too. The B2B marketing plan (provided the team still stuck to that) brought a plethora of different sponsors and paint schemes. While it’s always awesome to see many new sponsors enter the sport, a race-by-race sponsorship plan doesn’t seem sustainable for too long.
Fan activation was actually pretty good. Moffitt and a bunch of Faction46 crew members and staff have always been present for The King’s Hat Ceremony this season. This ceremony is a weekly unveiling of a statue in the likeness of the King’s hat at every track to celebrate 75 years of the Petty name in NASCAR.
Some of the team’s sponsors, such as Window World and Induction Innovations, have had activation areas in the heart of fan zones at many racetracks, and Moffitt himself is really open and happy to meet fans and sign autographs, as is the Petty way.
But fan activation is only one part in running a team, and it appears that there was a severe underestimation in what it took to run a fledgling race team. There were several factors that might have been overlooked in putting the team together.
Faction46 has not come out with any statement regarding its future, and there’s still not a lot of details of what happened behind the scenes between the team, Moffitt and Niece. But it’s probably safe to say that, at least for 2024, the team will not be showing up to the track anytime soon. There were multiple factors at play that gave the impression that this wasn’t going to work long-term.
This team had quite a bit of hype heading into the season. Just 13 races in, it’s all seemingly crashed and burned.
Author’s note: With Faction46’s website wiped, a huge thanks goes to this article from The Daily Downforce for a good majority of the information I used for this column.
Truckin’ Tidbits
- Floridian Motorsports will field a truck for someone other than Mason Maggio for the first time this season (and its young history) at Pocono. Sage Karam will instead drive the No. 21 with Carl Long serving as crew chief. Maggio will drive Reaume Brothers Racing’s No. 22.
- Stephen Mallozzi will drive Reaume’s third part-time truck, the No. 27, at Pocono, his home track. Keith McGee was originally on the entry list to drive the truck. Mallozzi’s best finish in six starts is 22nd in his debut at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2022.
- This Friday’s (July 12) race at Pocono is an additional 25 miles (10 laps) than it has been the last decade or so. The CRC Brakleen 175 is the first time the Truck Series will run more than 150 miles on the Tricky Triangle. It will be a 70-lap event, up from 60 (and previously 50) in years past.
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.