A new NASCAR season is almost here.
The Craftsman Truck Series kicks it all off with the best thing you could do with your Valentine’s Day: watch a 200-mph brawl between 36 trucks under the bright lights of Daytona International Speedway.
With a new season comes new faces vying for the Rookie of the Year award. After a light rookie class last year that featured three drivers and Layne Riggs winning the award in a runaway, this year’s rookie class is filled with plenty of potential and akin to the 2023 rookie class.
Let’s meet the six drivers vying for the 2025 Rookie of the Year in the Craftsman Truck Series.
Toni Breidinger
After two full-time seasons in the ARCA Menards Series in 2022 and 2024, Toni Breidinger moves up to the Truck Series, driving TRICON Garage’s No. 5. She replaces Dean Thompson, who moves up to begin his own Rookie of the Year campaign in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Sam Hunt Racing.
In her five full and part-time years in ARCA with Venturini Motorsports and Young’s Motorsports, Breidinger was unable to reach victory lane, but she did pull in 27 top 10s with a best finish of third at Kansas Speedway in 2023. Her best season overall was 2024, where she finished a career-best fourth in points.
Since 2023, Breidinger has made four starts in the Truck Series, all with TRICON. Her best finish came in her debut, again at Kansas, with a 15th-place finish. Though she has not made a start in the Truck Series since Daytona in 2024, she has a great team behind her in TRICON as well as a championship-caliber teammate in Corey Heim and a veteran teammate in Tanner Gray.
Breidinger currently carries the torch for female drivers in NASCAR following the retirement of Danica Patrick and the — at least temporary — departure of Hailie Deegan to open wheel racing. Breidinger has several big sponsors backing her such as Raising Cane’s, Celsius and Victoria’s Secret, for which she has served as a model. Her social media presence is also better than even some Cup Series drivers, and her notoriety will hopefully bring more eyes to the Truck Series — especially if she performs well.
She won’t be the only one bringing eyes to the series … but more on that later.
Gio Ruggiero
Joining Breidinger as a TRICON rookie is Gio Ruggiero, an up-and-coming driver who has already made a name for himself in the zMAX CARS Tour and ARCA scenes.
Despite only running 10 races in ARCA, he scored top-10 finishes in nine of them. In the ARCA East series, he won his lone ARCA race at Five Flags Speedway and finished fourth in the final standings for 2024. He also honed his road course craft by dabbling in the Trans Am Series last season.
Ruggiero will drive the No. 17, replacing Taylor Gray, who joins Thompson as a Xfinity Series rookie. While the 18-year-old doesn’t have a huge amount of work under his belt, the limited races he has run have shown that he has a lot of upside, and he could be a superstar in the making if he, TRICON and Toyota really take the time to develop him.
It’ll be a steep learning curve for Ruggiero, but he’s a quick study, and he’s one of the rookies you could look to if you’re looking for a surprise winner this season.
Dawson Sutton
A full-time Truck Series campaign for Dawson Sutton was inevitable, as his father Curtis is the co-owner of Sutton’s team, Rackley W.A.R., and the owner of Sutton’s sponsor, Rackley Roofing.
With Rackley’s 2024 driver Ty Dillon heading to the Cup Series, the door was wide open for Sutton to take the seat full-time for 2025. Sutton, much like Ruggiero, has cut his teeth on the short track and CARS Tour scenes. Though unlike Ruggiero, Sutton has made just one ARCA start, and it came at Bristol Motor Speedway with Hettinger Racing. With both driver and team making their debut, Sutton qualified seventh but ended up crashing a few laps into the event.
Sutton then made some Truck Series starts in 2024 in a second Rackley truck, the No. 26, before taking over the team’s flagship No. 25 towards the end of 2024 while Dillon focused on his upcoming Cup gig. In all, Sutton made seven starts in 2024 with a best finish of fifth at Kansas.
For 2025, the No. 26 is now the flagship truck for Sutton. While he wasn’t mind-blowing in 2024 aside from the fifth at Kansas, neither was Rackley W.A.R. With a driver who could serve long-term for the team, Rackley W.A.R. has a chance to make big strides in 2025 and beyond — provided Sutton doesn’t have an unreal year and is called up to the Xfinity Series.
Frankie Muniz
Remember when I mentioned Breidinger wouldn’t be the only driver bringing eyes to the Truck Series this season? That’s because Frankie Muniz is also putting his hat in the ring for Rookie of the Year honors.
Replacing Lawless Alan in the No. 33 for Reaume Brothers Racing, Muniz is widely known as an actor, primarily for his role as the titular character Malcolm in the hit TV series Malcolm in the Middle. Muniz always had a passion for racing as far back as when he attended the ill-fated 2001 Daytona 500. Since then, he competed in the Toyota Pro Celebrity Races on the Streets of Long Beach and even tried open wheel in the late 2000s before stepping back to focus on acting and some health issues.
In 2023, Muniz turned heads when he went full-time ARCA racing, doing pretty well for himself (even with the light ARCA fields that it had). He led the points for a little while, compiled 11 top 10s in a 20-race season, and ended up finishing fourth in the final points standings.
After a part-time 2024 season that saw him compete in ARCA, Trucks and Xfinity, Muniz now returns to full-time action, this time in the Truck Series. He joins Reaume, who just expanded from two full-time trucks to three for 2025, though Muniz will be the lone full-timer in the fleet.
Realistically, winning may not be in the cards for Muniz this season. But his confidence was shattered after the way last season unfolded for him, and getting back to full-time racing may be the only thing he wants right now. Even still, not a whole lot was expected from him in the 2023 ARCA season, yet he ended up a legitimate championship contender for most of the season.
Who knows what we could see from him this year.
Andres Perez
We have been blessed with royalty this season. Okay, not really, but Andres Perez does enter his rookie Truck Series campaign fresh off winning the 2024 ARCA championship in almost dominating fashion despite not winning a race all year.
Perez spent two years with Rev Racing in ARCA, and was largely expected to replace Nick Sanchez in Rev’s truck seat as Sanchez also moved up with Thompson and Gray to the Xfinity Series. However, Rev has seemingly ended its truck program. Reaume acquired Rev’s No. 2, while Spire has apparently acquired the assets from Rev after already building its trucks in 2024.
Perez technically replaces Chase Purdy, who drove the No. 77 last season, but he’s still more than likely replacing Sanchez in the truck that is Rev-turned-Spire. He made two truck starts last season, including his debut with Spire at World Wide Technology Raceway, where he finished an impressive ninth. He made an additional start in the season finale at Phoenix, replacing Marco Andretti at Roper Racing, but he could only muster a 31st-place result.
Perez brings a ton of racing experience. Not just from ARCA, but also from the NASCAR Mexico Series. With a great Truck team behind him in Spire, he has a great shot at taking home ROTY honors. In fact, he is this author’s pick to win Rookie of the Year. Perez has a ton of talent, and it will be fun to see how he does in 2025.
Connor Mosack
While the Truck Series is nothing new for Connor Mosack, this is his first chance at full-time racing, not just in the Truck Series, but NASCAR as a whole. He will drive for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing in the No. 81, remembered from No. 43. He replaces Daniel Dye, who (say it with me folks) also moves up to the Xfinity Series.
While Mosack has over 10 starts in the Truck Series, over 20 starts in ARCA and Xfinity competition and full-time seasons in the CARS Tour and Trans Am, his best performances have come in ARCA. There, he has two wins and 16 top 10s. Mosack has only earned four top 10s in 11 truck starts, but he’s also driven four different trucks for three different teams, so he hasn’t had a consistent team to work with.
That changes this year. MHR came off a championship-caliber season where most, if not all of its drivers could have (and should have) won races. With Mosack being one of three new drivers coming to for MHR for 2025, he’s not alone in learning the ropes of the team. That gives him a chance to prove himself as one of, if not the best on his team.
But only time will tell.
Follow @AnthonyDamcott on X.
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.
Seems to me it’s a two truck race for ROY. Mossback or Perez.