For a few years now, NASCAR has made a greater effort to expand into international waters and attempt to find places to race outside of the United States of America.
Those efforts will be realized this summer when the Cup Series and Xfinity Series head to Mexico City to compete at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the Cup Series’ first race in Mexico, and the first race back at AHR for the Xfinity Series since 2008.
NASCAR isn’t stopping at Mexico, however. Rumors swirled briefly that the 2026 Cook Out Clash could be run at Interlagos in Brazil, and there has been a great effort to return north to Canada.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is no stranger to Canadian territory in recent years. The series made an annual trip to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ont., from 2013-2019, providing fantastic finishes almost every year. Really, the only reason the Truck Series stopped racing there was due to COVID restrictions on border travel — but even since those restrictions were lifted, there has not been a lot of effort to send the Truckers back to Canada.
Until recently, it seems.
According to the a report from The Quebec Journal in Canada, NASCAR is set to return in 2026 — not just the Truck Series, but Xfinity, too.
In addition to Mexico, the Xfinity Series used to make an annual trip up to Canada as well (back when it was the Nationwide Series) from 2007-2012. Although instead of CTMP, the Xfinity Series went to Montreal and competed at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and — much like the Truck Series at CTMP — produced some exciting races and equally exciting finishes.
According to The Quebec Journal, both the Xfinity and Truck Series are set to return to Canada in 2026, both competing at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
This would be interesting for the Truck Series. Having never raced at CGV, it would be interesting to see how the series could perform at a new track, and how many fans who came out to watch them at CTMP would come to CGV to watch the Truckers go at it.
At the same time, going to Canadian Tire was a unique thing for the Truck Series to have — similarly, going to CGV was a unique thing for the Xfinity Series. It almost feels like if a return to Canada is imminent (which, don’t get me wrong, should absolutely happen), then these series could very much benefit from standalone races at the tracks they’re used to racing at up north.
However, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a fine track — if the Xfinity Series was able to put on so many exciting races there, imagine what the Truck Series could do, considering it put on equally exciting races at CTMP. (Maybe Canada has something in the air that makes NASCAR put on great races up there.)
The article goes on to state that essentially, sending the Xfinity and Truck Series to Montreal in 2026 will kind of serve as a test project to determine whether or not NASCAR could also send the Cup Series to join them in 2027.
It’s not a bad strategy, in all honesty, to see how the second- and third-tier series do in attendance before sending the premier series out there. However, much like Rockingham Speedway this year, it would also be cool if the Xfinity and Truck Series also had an international standalone weekend — or two separate standalone dates (i.e.: Xfinity goes in the spring and Trucks go in the fall or something).
Personally, a return to Canada should absolutely happen for the Truck Series — it’s a shame it ever stopped going to CTMP to begin with, because every year when you watched that race, you knew an exciting finish was going to happen.
Seriously.
Every year.
Chase Elliott vs. Ty Dillon and Max Papis fighting Mike Skeen in 2013; Ryan Blaney narrowly beating German Quiroga in 2014; Erik Jones holding off Alex Tagliani as the latter ran out of fuel in 2015; John Hunter Nemechek vs. Cole Custer in 2016; Austin Cindric vs. Kaz Grala in 2017; Justin Haley stealing one from Todd Gilliland and Noah Gragson in 2018, and Brett Moffitt continuing his playoff run in 2019.
It makes you wonder if anyone who was on the losing end of those battles might return to avenge themselves. Could we see Tagliani (a Canadian with plenty of experience at CGV) return to avenge both his Truck Series CTMP and Xfinity Montreal losses? Could Grala take a stab at running for redemption? Could Quiroga make his first Truck Series start since 2016? If the scheduling with Cup works out right, could Dillon, Gilliland, Gragson and Custer avenge their brutal losses?
Not just those guys, it’d be cool to see some Canadian natives enter the field should this report become reality. Could you imagine seeing guys like Cameron Hayley, Raphaël Lessard or Andrew Ranger back behind the wheel of a truck?
Or perhaps some other NASCAR Canada Series drivers? What if defending champion Marc-Antoine Camirand or 2023 champion Treyten Lapcevich decided to take a run at it in a truck? For Lapcevich, his brother (and 2016 Canada Series champion) Cayden is a crew chief at McAnally-Hilgemann Racing — maybe the two could be paired for a race in their home country.
Either way, the idea of returning to Canada sounds exciting — the Truck Series’ track record (no pun intended) up north is one chock-full of excitement and could continue at a new track.
With Cup and Xfinity already having Mexico City, the Truck Series getting a chance at its own international race in Canada is just what it needs.
We’ll just have to wait and see what NASCAR has to say about a potential return before we get too far ahead of ourselves.
Truckin’ Tidbits
- Have you seen Spire Motorsports’ paint scheme lineup for Homestead-Miami Speedway? Three of its four trucks (Kyle Larson’s No. 07, Corey Day’s No. 7 and Rajah Caruth’s No. 71) are adorned with the same sponsor in HendrickCars.com, resulting in matching paint schemes — talk about driver identity. Spire’s fourth truck of Andres Perez, though racing with a different sponsor in Telcel, is sporting a similar shade of blue on his No. 77. This weekend will surely confuse all four of Spire’s spotters thoroughly.
- The lone Truck Series penalty on this week’s penalty report was the No. 07, which was driven by Haley at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The charge was simply a loose lug nut post-race, and as such, Spire was fined $2500. (Note that the team is now fined for loose lug nuts, not the crew chief of the vehicle.)
- Freedom Racing Enterprises will field a second truck, the No. 67, for the first time in its history starting this weekend at Homestead. Michel Disdier will make his first start since 2018. FRE already announced that Ryan Roulette would drive three races in the No. 67.
- The June 28 race at Lime Rock Park has picked up LiUNA! as an entitlement sponsor. The race will be known as the LiUNA! 150 — which will make the race approximately 98 or 99 laps around the 1.53-mile Connecticut road course.
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.