Truckin’ Thursdays: The Frustrating Race Logistics of Talladega

The carnage of Talladega Superspeedway is now behind us. Grant Enfinger emerged victorious for his first Craftsman Truck Series win of 2024, while notching the first-ever victory for his team, CR7 Motorsports.

Enfinger’s win came in a race that was altered heavily from year’s past due to several circumstances. However, none of those circumstances should have factored into changing up the race the way NASCAR did.

First, the race’s distance was shortened by 25 miles, from 250 to 225 miles. That meant the checkered flag would be thrown at lap 85 instead of lap 94. That changed the racing just enough to provide a little bit more urgency in the racing, knowing that there were nine less laps to find your way to the front (which, in the context of an average Talladega Truck Series race, nine laps is a lot).

The decision to shorten the race has its positives and negatives. On one hand, there are nine less laps to tear up equipment unnecessarily. Which would concurrently help with any overtime attempts — if there are nine laps of overtime, then the race wouldn’t go past it’s old distance anyway and teams can load up and be out of Talladega faster than they used to. Not by much, but any little extra time to begin the long drive back to North Carolina helps those truck teams, who likely have lower budgets than those of the Xfinity or Cup Series.

If that was the actual reason behind shortening the race distance, it would make a little bit more sense. However, the real reason behind it is rather frustrating.

The race was shortened because it was moved from a Saturday afternoon to a Friday evening. This was due to the return of the Xfinity Series to the Alabama racetrack. After receiving a second date in 2020, the Xfinity Series would run a doubleheader with the Truck Series from 2020-2022 before not returning in 2023.

However, it was put back on the schedule for 2024, also with a shortened distance (down to 250 miles from 300). Because of this, NASCAR adjusted the weekend schedule when it released the 2024 schedule and moved the Truck Series race to Friday, allowing the Xfinity Series to have its own day on Saturday.

But the issue with running the trucks on a Friday night stems from the fact that Talladega does not (and likely never will) have lights. Any on-track activity must be completed before sundown. But with a 225-mile truck race that will likely have a plethora of cautions, if not a red flag for accidents, starting a race late in the night in the fall (when the sun sets earlier) is not feasible.

That flaw showed fully when NASCAR shortened the race distance, and was exposed even further when it was announced that the green flag would wave shortly after 4:30 p.m. ET on said Friday night. Almost everyone on the east coast would still be stuck at work when the race went green.

That also put the race in a pretty tight window of daylight. After the race went green, it was announced that the race’s checkered flag would fly no later than 7:15 p.m. ET (6:15 p.m. local) due to the waning sun. That left about two and a half hours to get in a race that is often fraught with crashes and cautions. Just the year prior, the 250-miler took two hours and 26 minutes to complete, and that was with just five laps of overtime.

Fortunately, the race was able to be completed. No overtime was needed, and the time of race took just one hour and 48 minutes to complete. But it still wasn’t without a lot of carnage.

But it doesn’t change the fact that the race didn’t need to be moved up from Saturday to begin with.

Firstly, the doubleheader with Xfinity worked just fine for three years, why change it? It gave fans two races in one day along with the other on-track activity that was sprinkled in too, such as practice and qualifying. Both races were able to be completed by sunset, usually with plenty of time to spare. Don’t fix what isn’t broke.

Secondly, if the race was moved up to give the Xfinity Series race a bigger window, that isn’t a good excuse either. Not only did the Xfinity race also get shortened (by a greater distance than the truck race, at that), but the race still started at 4 p.m. ET. That would have left the entire early afternoon for the truck race to get in before the Xfinity guys hit the track.

Assuming the race still takes under two hours to complete even with said crashes and cautions, the race could have started at noon local time (1 p.m. ET) and been completed with at least an hour to change over to the Xfinity race. Even if a red flag was necessary, the Xfinity race could have been pushed back a half-hour or hour to accommodate — again, the Xfinity race was also shortened, so there was flexibility.

Instead, the race was unnecessarily shortened and moved to Friday at a track with no lights in a season where sunset is much earlier, forcing a start time early enough where people were still stuck at work when the green flag flew.

Now, at any other racetrack, an issue like this could potentially be overlooked, especially considering it’s the Truck Series.

But this is Talladega, man. This is one of the few races of the year that are bound to get more eyes on the series than normal. But making logistical changes like these will not get those eyes.

At the time of this writing, ratings for the truck race have not been released. But with all these factors in play, I can’t imagine they were better (or even the same) as last year.

The 2025 schedule, having already been released, shows the same lineup for the fall Talladega race as this year — trucks on Friday, Xfinity on Saturday. But hopefully for 2026 they can reconsider some of their decisions and make it a doubleheader again. Wouldn’t be the first time in the season we’d see a Truck/Xfinity doubleheader.

Plus, it just makes more logistical sense.