Zane Smith will move on from Trackhouse Racing after the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, Trackhouse announced Aug. 23.
Trackhouse and Smith have mutually agreed to part ways after the season ends.
He currently drives the No. 71 for Spire Motorsports in a partnership with Trackhouse.
“Obviously, I am disappointed that I’ve been put in a tough spot,” Smith said in a release. “I am diligently exploring quality driving opportunities and hope to quickly wrap up my plans for next year.”
Through 24 races, he has one top five and two top 10s. His best finish came at Nashville Superspeedway, where he came home second.
Spire’s current 2025 Cup lineup is made up of Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar. Corey LaJoie will not return to the team next year.
Trackhouse, meanwhile, has Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain signed for 2025.
Rutherford is the managing editor of Frontstretch, a position he gained in 2015 after serving on the editing staff for two years. At his day job, he's a journalist covering music and rock charts at Billboard. He lives in New York City, but his heart is in Ohio -- you know, like that Hawthorne Heights song.
Deserves a good xfinity seat
I get why this decision has been made, though the timing is a bit unfortunate in that Zane has been putting up much better finishes in the last handful of races. He seems to finally be getting things and we have seen that rookies need a good bit of time to develop in Cup. There are probably other underlying factors. Zane is a talented driver and seems well respected going back to Trucks. Perhaps he’d be a better fit with Front Row, his old team. I think he would have already been there had Gilliland not develop as well as he has(and good for him!), which I think was unexpected. If not that, as the first commenter pointed out, Zane would likely fit in well in Xfinity if he can’t stay in Cup. I think jumping directly from Trucks to Cup, for him, was not an ideal situation.
He deserves a better car.