As the laps ticked down during the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race Friday night (April 11) at Bristol Motor Speedway, Bayley Currey moved around Rajah Caruth and into the third position. Currey already had 10 stage points in the bag from winning stage two, and as the leaders battled, it looked like that fast No. 44 truck had a chance.
Inside the truck, however, all was not well.
“It had started vibrating, and I could feel it and I thought maybe something was dragging the ground, but I definitely noticed like a power loss there,” Currey explained after the race. “When I was running behind the No. 11 and the No. 71, my plan was I was just gonna sit here and ride, wait till we get the lapped traffic and and go try to make a move there.”
A late caution brought the field together, and Currey chose to line up on the outside line behind leader Corey Heim. A good restart could have potentially lifted Currey to the second position with a real shot at the win.
“When we’re coming to the green there I’m like, ‘OK, what do I gotta do just to stay where I’m at?'” Currey said. “Got on the gas and went in the corner and boom, blew up and rolled around [turns] 1 and 2.”
Currey has a best finish of fourth in the Truck Series, but late in this race he had a chance to better that.
Instead, his day ended prematurely.
“This one stings a little bit,” Currey admitted. “We got our first stage win, went up there and led laps, felt like we had a really, really fast truck that could win the race.”
In six races so far this season, Currey has raced in four of them. Overall, the No. 44 led 14 of the 250 laps.
In 2024, Currey did not lead a lap and only posted one top-10 finish. While the finish doesn’t tell the story of the race for Currey, he feels the team has improved measurably.
“Really, really proud of this group, proud of what they’ve done,” he said. “We struggled a lot last year over the offseason. We felt we really came together and, yeah, I mean, it’s showing.”
As far as making a statement to the competitors while racing this partial schedule, Currey said, “I try to just focus on us and Niece Motorsports and the No. 44 team. It’s cool to go race up front with those guys, but, I mean, it’s just another truck with a number on the side.
“We’re just going to keep working on it and we’ll go park it in victory lane.”
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!