Truckin’ Thursdays: History of the Triple Truck Challenge

Viewers of the NASCAR Xfinity Series for as many as 20 years know about the Dash 4 Cash, a midseason four-race contest between the top four Xfinity finishers from the previous week.

The highest finisher of those four in the next race takes home an additional $100,000 and qualifies for the next week’s edition of the competition. If a driver wins all four Dash 4 Cash races, they take home $1 million in bonus money for the season.

For example, this past weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway was the first race of the 2025 edition of the Dash 4 Cash. The race before that at Las Vegas Motor Speedway determined who would be the first four to compete for the money at Homestead. Those drivers were Justin Allgaier (who won Vegas), Jesse Love (third), Austin Hill (fourth) and Sam Mayer (fifth) — Aric Almirola, who finished second, did not compete at Homestead and was therefore ineligible.

Allgaier earned back-to-back wins, taking home the first $100,000. Allgaier, along with Mayer, Hill and Sheldon Creed will make up this week’s Dash 4 Cash at Martinsville Speedway. This will repeat again for the next three races — the number four in “Dash 4 Cash” represents both the number of races the competition runs and the number of competitors who can contend.

This “competition-within-a-competition” has been around since 2009, back when Nationwide sponsored the second-tier series.

In 2019, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series got a similar version of the Dash 4 Cash, though measuredly different. Labeled the “Triple Truck Challenge,” the premise goes like this: A three-race stretch within the schedule offers monetary bonuses to the driver who wins those races.

Unlike the Dash 4 Cash, every driver who qualifies for the race is eligible for the money in every race — whoever wins the race takes home an extra check. Winning one of the three races earns you an additional $50,000. If a driver were to win a second Triple Truck Challenge race, they would earn an additional $150,000. If a driver sweeps all three races, they take home a whopping $500,000 in additional payout — which, for a Truck Series team, is huge.

Much like the Dash 4 Cash, the Triple Truck Challenge (which is typically nicknamed “The Trip” for short) was formed when the Truck Series had a different entitlement sponsor in Camping World/Gander RV & Outdoors. When Craftsman took back over in 2023, The Trip remained as an incentive for a series that doesn’t have the same payout structure as that of the Cup Series.

Want an interesting piece of trivia? Greg Biffle was the first driver to win a Triple Truck Challenge race. In a one-off start with Kyle Busch Motorsports at Texas Motor Speedway in 2019 — his first NASCAR start since 2016 and his first Truck Series start since 2004 — Biffle led 18 laps and won his first Truck Series race since 2001, earning himself and KBM an additional $50,000 bonus in the process.

The only driver to win more than one Triple Truck Challenge race in a season is Creed in 2020 — he scored victories in the first race at the Daytona International Speedway road course and the third race at World Wide Technology Raceway, but a dismal 22nd-place finish in the middle race at Dover Motor Speedway barred him from a chance at $500,000. Teammate Zane Smith was able to pick up the win, allowing GMS Racing to sweep the 2020 edition of the competition.

Creed is also the winningest driver of the Triple Truck Challenge, with three race wins — he tacked on one more win the following season in 2021 at Darlington Raceway. Gateway has also hosted the most races for The Trip with five. No other track has hosted more than three. Another interesting bit of trivia is that Corey Heim has won The Trip twice at the same track in two completely different years — he won $50,000 at Gateway in 2022 and then did it again in 2024. Heim and Creed are the only two drivers who have won more than one Triple Truck Challenge race.

Perhaps the most surprising winner of the $50,000 bonus was Parker Kligerman in 2022, driving for the small, part-time team of Henderson Motorsports at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Kligerman and Henderson nailed the setup that weekend, running third in practice, qualifying second, winning stage one, finishing second in stage two and leading 56 of the race’s 67 laps. Kligerman had to hold off a hard charge from Smith, but he held steady and took home just his third (and to date, last — too bad about Daytona this year) career victory in the Truck Series, and only Henderson’s second.

The 2025 edition of The Trip consists of three tracks who have never hosted a Triple Truck Challenge race — it’s also the earliest that The Trip has ever been held, because it begins this Friday (March 28) at Martinsville Speedway. After that, The Trip continues at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 11 before concluding at the return of Rockingham Speedway on April 18.

As it stands, there are four active Truck Series drivers who could add on to their Triple Truck Challenge win total: Heim (Gateway 2022 and 2024), Ben Rhodes (Charlotte 2023), Grant Enfinger (Gateway 2023) and Kligerman (Mid-Ohio 2022) — though of those four, Kligerman won’t be able to attempt to win the $500,000, as he is not entered at Martinsville.

The question is, can anybody win the $500,000? Heim would probably be the favorite (among several things he’s the favorite for — such as the title) because of his dominance in the Truck Series. However, Rockingham adds a twist to the challenge because of the lack of track time for almost everybody in the field there. The only full-time driver currently on the Truck Series circuit that competed in the last truck race there in 2013 is Matt Crafton — everybody else pretty much has to rely on the testing they did in January to know the track.

That could throw a wrench into anyone vying for the $500,000, or even the $150,000 to win two of the three races. We’ve seen just how difficult it is to even win a second race in The Trip — Creed is the only driver to do it, and that was five years ago. Teams will likely be more focused on winning just two of the races before setting sights on all three.

And if you’re thinking about the correlation between winning a Triple Truck Challenge race and winning the championship? It almost doesn’t really matter.

Entering the seventh year of The Trip’s existence, only twice has a driver won one of its races and then gone on to win the championship that year: Creed in 2020 and Rhodes in 2023.

Fortunately, the good thing about the Triple Truck Challenge is that there’s no additional strategy needed from anybody. Since all drivers in the field are eligible to win any of the races, teams don’t have to approach the race differently like the Xfinity Dash 4 Cash drivers might (or even the Cup Series drivers competing in the in-season tournament later this season). Just keep doing what you would to win a race anyway and the money is yours.

But who might take a bigger risk to walk away with some extra dough?

It’s like we say for the NASCAR All-Star Race: What would you do for $1 million?

Well, in the Truck Series, what would you do for an extra $50,000? How about $150,000? $500,000?

Let’s find out.

Truckin’ Tidbits:

• Spire Motorsports will be keeping the same “spotter’s nightmare” rotation of paint schemes this week as it did last week, as Corey Day (a Hendrick Motorsports development driver) will return to the No. 7 again, while William Byron (a Hendrick Cup Series driver) will replace Kyle Larson this week in the No. 07 with the same sponsor. They join Rajah Caruth, who is normally the lone HendrickCars.com driver in the Truck Series.
• Window World will now serve as the entitlement sponsor of the Truck Series’ 250-lap showdown at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Window World, which sponsors the zMAX CARS Tour’s Late Model Stock Car feature at North Wilkesboro (the Window World 125), replaces Wright Brand, who was the entitlement sponsor in 2024. Tyson Foods was the entitlement sponsor in NASCAR’s return in 2023.
• The doctor is in and Cook Racing Technologies is back. Board-certified retina specialist Patrick Staropoli will make multiple Truck Series starts with CRT, driving the team’s No. 84. CRT has not made a truck start since making two total starts with Clay Greenfield in 2022 and 2023. In 2024 it partnered with Roper Racing to field a part-time entry for Marco Andretti under the Roper banner.