“If you’re in it, you can win it.”
Throughout all of NASCAR’s history, this phrase has been utilized most at the superspeedways of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. This is because of the tight pack racing and big crashes that mean teams and drivers with even the slimmest of budgets can (and do) find themselves in position to steal a win and create monumental upsets.
The magic of winning at Talladega, in particular, is one that the Craftsman Truck Series has taken to heart. The last eight years, the series’ annual trip to Sweet Home Alabama have provided the unlikeliest of winners. The contenders you’d expect to find victory lane have been all but shut out since 2016. More importantly, no playoff driver has visited Talladega’s victory lane, as the streak of non-playoff winners at Talladega has been in existence since the series first introduced the playoffs in 2016.
That year, it was Grant Enfinger who went to victory lane. Nowadays, Enfinger is a regular Truck Series competitor with 10 wins to his name. But that Talladega victory was the first of his career, and it came in the midst of a part-time schedule in 2016 that consisted of just eight races across two teams and three trucks.
Driving for the now-defunct GMS Racing, Enfinger qualified second and held off teammate Spencer Gallagher, son of team owner Maury Gallagher, to win his only race in nearly two years. His second career win didn’t come until 2018.
Failing to qualify for the 2016 race was Parker Kligerman, driving part-time for Henderson Motorsports, a role he kept all the way up until this season. Returning to the track in 2017, Kligerman took home a shocking victory.
Not only was it his second career victory (his first coming way back in 2012, also at Talladega), but it was also the first victory for the part-time, underfunded Henderson team, who went on to win one more race with Kligerman in 2022 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Kligerman and the No. 75 team returned to defend their victory in 2018, but crashed out early and ending their day. It wasn’t the last crash of the day. That came on the final lap when leader Noah Gragson was turned down the backstretch, igniting a big crash that brought out the race-ending caution.
The race winner was Timothy Peters. Again, not exactly and out-of-left-field victor, as Peters had won at Talladega back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. The surprise comes in the fact that Peters was competing in just his fourth race of the season and third with GMS. Peters was tapped as one of the replacement drivers of the No. 25, which started as a full-time effort for Dalton Sargeant (who, if you didn’t know, is the older brother of Logan Sargeant, the most recent American driver to start a Formula 1 race).
Sargeant was let go from the ride in August of 2018 due to funding and contract issues with GMS, and Gallagher was supposed to fill in before aggravating his shoulder during a workout, leading to Peters getting the ride. It was the 11th and final win of his Truck career.
Perhaps the most shocking win to that point came the following season in 2019. Johnny Sauter crossed the line first, but he was penalized for blocking Riley Herbst below the double yellow line coming into the tri-oval on the final lap. However, Herbst was not credited with the victory, as the block and lack of a push relegated him to fourth (third after Sauter’s disqualification).
The runner-up? Spencer Boyd.
Boyd, driving for Young’s Motorsports, rolled the high line and could’ve won the race on speed had there been another 1000 feet before the line. But as Sauter was penalized, Boyd was awarded to win, ending the three-year streak of part-time driver and team wins at Talladega and giving both Boyd and Young’s shocking first career wins.
The next season, a familiar team found victory lane in Kyle Busch Motorsports. However, the two full-time teams of Christian Eckes and Raphael Lessard had struggled, with the latter not even qualifying for the playoffs. Entering Talladega, neither of the two drivers had won on the year.
However, Lessard was able to get to the lead on the final lap and held off Trevor Bayne (which would have been an equally surprising winner) to earn his first and only career Truck Series win. The win made Lessard the first French Canadian to win a NASCAR national series race.
Lessard was released from KBM at season’s end and joined GMS in 2021, only to be released after seven races due to sponsorship issues. Therefore, he was unable to defend his Talladega victory. However, that left the door open for Young’s to return to victory lane and win its second career race in three years at the same track.
This time, it did so with Tate Fogleman, who survived a wreckfest of a race and ended up turning John Hunter Nemechek for the win coming out of the tri-oval. Though his momentum was lost and allowed Tyler Hill to sneak to his inside and try to pull off a stunner of his own with family-owned Hill Motorsports, Fogleman held on.
Fogleman turned down to block, and the ensuing contact ended up in both trucks getting wrecked. Fogleman still beat Hill for the win, then gave his victory interview upon his release from the care center (which is still baffling that it was not shown on live TV and instead just posted to Twitter afterwards).
If you’re keeping score, Young’s Motorsports is the winningest active Truck Series team at Talladega.
After a wild race in 2022, it was Bret Holmes, driving part-time for his family-owned team, who seemingly took an incredible underdog victory in his home state. He did so as the rest of the field crashed behind him, including second- and third-place Matt DiBenedetto and Ben Rhodes.
However, the finish was reviewed, and it was determined that the caution came out mere feet from the line, and DiBenedetto was the leader at the time of caution. Therefore, for the first time in his NASCAR career, DiBenedetto was finally a NASCAR winner. Unfortunately, Holmes is still looking for his first career win.
Though DiBenedetto crashed coming to the line, he was able to drive his truck to victory lane and celebrate, unlike Fogleman. It was also the first career win for Rackley W.A.R., its only win to date.
However, DiBenedetto became the next Talladega winner to not be able to defend it the following year, as he and Rackley parted ways prior to Talladega in 2023. At the same time, a new entrant for the race was 2018 series champion Brett Moffitt, who was driving full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for AM Racing at the time.
What made Moffitt’s entry interesting was that he was to drive a second entry for Front Row Motorsports, the No. 34, as a teammate to then-driver Zane Smith. It’s the first and only time FRM has fielded a second truck. Moffitt received sponsorship from FR8 Auctions, sporting a throwback to a paint scheme Moffitt ran when he won Cup Series Rookie of the Year with FRM in 2015.
It was a one-off event for Moffitt and the No. 34 team, and they took full advantage. After nearly failing to qualify, Moffitt passed Eckes on the final lap to win his first truck race since 2020.
However, Moffitt will not compete in this year’s event. In fact, only three drivers attempting this year’s race have won a truck race at Talladega: Sauter, Enfinger and Boyd.
So it could be highly likely that we see another unlikely winner for the ninth year in a row. But who might be the ‘favorites’?
Well, you obviously have to look at Holmes, who has been seeking redemption since 2022 and has the added motivation of racing in front of his home crowd. There’s Cory Roper, who almost pulled off a stunner at Daytona in 2021. Dawson Sutton scored a top five last week at Kansas Speedway and could have some surprising speed, especially with Rackley’s past winning ways at the 2.66-mile behemoth.
Young’s is only fielding one truck for this race, the No. 02 of Keith McGee. Hill Motorsports, now with Tyler’s brother Timmy Hill driving, could also be looking for that win that got away in 2021. Niece Motorsports has only won once this year after winning four times last year. It has a fleet that could potentially get the job done.
Both Connor Zilisch and William Sawalich are making their superspeedway debuts. Henderson Motorsports could sneak back into victory lane with Stefan Parsons at the wheel, while Ryan Reed makes a surprise return in a fast truck, driving the No. 91 for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing.
Those might be the best bets for the race if you’re looking for truly surprising winners to cheer for. But with only three past winners attempting the race, the odds might be higher than ever for a playoff driver to take a victory.
But nothing is guaranteed at Talladega, and who knows? We could watch yet another underdog driver and/or team make some more magic down south.
Coverage for the Love’s RV Stops 225 (shortened from 250 miles last year) begins on Friday (Oct. 4) at 5 p.m. on FOX Sports 1.
Truckin’ Tidbits
- It was confirmed on Saturday (Sept. 28) that Ty Dillon would move back up to the Cup Series, replacing Daniel Hemric in 2025. Dillon will drive the No. 10, with the team acquiring the number upon Stewart-Haas Racing’s closing. The team will release the rights to the No. 31 at season’s end.
- It’s official – Kaden Honeycutt will compete full-time for Niece Motorsports in 2025. He will drive the No. 45 and has at least one confirmed full-time teammate in Matt Mills, who just signed a contract extension on Friday (Sept. 27). I’m not going to say I called it, but I might’ve called it.
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.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.