To nobody’s surprise, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series continues to bow down to the stranglehold of Corey Heim and the No. 11 TRICON Garage team.
This has been the case for the last three years, as 14 of Heim’s 16 career wins have come with TRICON since joining the team in 2023. However, Heim has a grand total of zero championships between his first two seasons with the team in 2023 and 2024.
No, both seasons of Heim Time dominance ended in ThorSport Racing championships. The 2023 title went to Ben Rhodes, his second, and the 2024 title went to Ty Majeski, his first.
Rhodes’ first championship came in 2021 and we could have been talking about the No. 99 team three-peating had he not come up just one spot short of the title in 2022. That year, he could’ve used just one additional lap to set up a pass on the driver who ended up winning the title, Zane Smith.
Smith’s title was redemption from 2020, after just missing out on the glory to then-teammate Sheldon Creed. Creed’s title marked the beginning of the ‘young gun era’ of Truck Series champions, as the year before Creed took home the honors, it was veteran Matt Crafton taking home his third Truck Series championship.
Crafton’s championship in 2019 was met with criticism, not over Crafton’s title, but over NASCAR’s playoff system. Despite a system specifically designed to award those who win, Crafton took home the title with zero wins that season.
So let’s see — Crafton in 2019. Rhodes in both 2021 and 2023. Add in Majeski in 2024.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s four titles for ThorSport Racing in the last six seasons. Not to mention coming one spot short in 2022 and don’t forget in 2020, Grant Enfinger, who was with ThorSport at that time, made the Championship 4 as well. So theoretically, if a few breaks go one way or the other, ThorSport could be riding a six-year streak of drivers’ championships.
Some of those championships have been through domination. Some, admittedly, through luck. Some involved getting hot at the right time, such as the case with its most recent championship with Majeski.
But one thing is for sure — the Sandusky, Ohio-based team is always there when it counts.
In 2025, though? That’s far from the case.
While yes, ThorSport is a team that seems to find itself getting warmed up around playoff time, at least one of its drivers is a consistent contender for victory on a weekly basis. Yes, even with Heim leading hundreds of laps and running away by a million seconds.
This year, none of ThorSport’s drivers have really come close to victory. In fact, just the idea of leading a race seems to be a foreign concept. Of the four full-time drivers, it’s actually the lone title-less driver, Jake Garcia, who leads the fleet in laps led. That sounds impressive until you realize that Garcia has only led 47 laps this season. That’s only ninth of all the drivers who have led laps this season.
Rhodes is 14th in that category with just 30 circuits out front. Majeski is right behind him with 26 laps led, while Crafton has just 12 laps ahead of the field this season. In some flash of excellence, all except Garcia have won a stage this season to help them in points, especially if they make the playoffs. However, Garcia has all his teammates in the pole-winning category, with two.
I know, “laps led” can’t be the sole reason ThorSport is lagging behind this season — and you would be right. No ThorSport driver has more than eight top 10s at this point in the season and that comes courtesy of Majeski, whose again bears the torch for ThorSport.
But that’s not a high bar, especially for the reigning champion. He’s currently the last driver above the playoff cut line.
The first driver below the cut line? Garcia.
Is it safe to say that this four-time championship hangover and six-time Championship 4 hangover is finally descended upon Sandusky, Ohio?
It certainly appears that way from a statistical standpoint. Again, at this point last season, ThorSport had yet to reach victory lane — however the difference is that ThorSport was in contention at multiple points last season to earn a victory before it actually did. There were several points where primarily Majeski was in contention before some late-race chicanery foiled his chances at a victory.
That is not the case this season.
Aside from Heim’s dominance, we’ve seen multiple victories out of McAnally-Hilgemann, Spire Motorsports and Front Row Motorsports. And when those teams aren’t winning, they are running comfortably in the top 10 and even the top five. Those results show by looking at the point standings — Majeski is the first ThorSport driver in points, all the way down in eighth.
However, with victories from two drivers outside the top 10 in points (Stewart Friesen and Rajah Caruth), Majeski finds himself at risk of missing the playoffs completely one year after winning it all.
Truthfully, Garcia has been the breakout driver at ThorSport in 2025, making substantial gains over where he was last season. His two poles this season are the first of his career and, as previously mentioned, he’s literally leading the way for the team with his 47 laps led on the season.
Rhodes has largely been hit-or-miss since his 2023 championship. He’s shown flashes of excellence, but hasn’t quite found the stride he once had. His last victory was in that 2023 season, and even then, it was early in the season at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He won the pole for the season-opener this year at Daytona International Speedway and won the opening stage, but hasn’t seen the front much since.
His pair of fourth-place finishes in the last three races marked the first time the No. 99 team finished in the top five since Bristol Motor Speedway back in April. Rhodes recently received a new crew chief in Doug George, who previously worked on the team’s fifth truck, the No. 66, to help make some sort of playoff push, so we’ll have to see if that pays off.
Then there’s Crafton, who, other than winning the second stage at Daytona, has not had any luck at all. The 49-year-old veteran has only three top 10s this season and sits a dismal 16th in points, well out of the hunt for a playoff spot barring a victory.
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Even the team’s fifth truck, an all-star truck for rookies Luke Fenhaus, Luke Baldwin and Cam Waters (as well as ThorSport alum Johnny Sauter for Daytona) hasn’t seen much luck. The truck only has two top fives, one with Fenhaus and one with Waters.
Yeah, this season is a down year for the team for sure.
The wild part though? You cannot rule any of those drivers out for the championship yet.
The next race on the 2025 schedule is Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on July 25. The 2023 and 2024 races were both won by Majeski — and in 2024, it was his first win of the year, which kickstarted his championship run.
Until all four drivers are officially and 100% bounced from any kind of playoff contention, whether it be the original 10 drivers, or in the Round of 10 or Round of 8, we cannot write them off. We’ve seen the team do improbable things before — maybe 2025 is just a hell of a late blooming year for it.
But it’s understandable if you have written the team off already — because even if it is a late-bloomer year for any of its drivers, and even if Heim has dominated every single category in the Truck Series, it has still been a statistical year from hell for the lone Truck Series team based out of Ohio.
Truckin’ Tidbits
- Toni Breidinger has landed yet another big-name sponsorship, this time with Dave & Buster’s. Breidinger was named the company’s 2025 Summer Ambassador, and will carry D&B on her No. 5 at Watkins Glen International in August.
- Spencer Boyd will carry My Auto Store aboard his No. 76 for the rest of the 2025 season as an associate. The company will be Boyd’s primary sponsor at Lucas Oil IRP.
- The Truck Series’ return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway will be sponsored by EJ Prescott, Inc. The race will be known as the Team EJP 175. The Truck Series will return to New Hampshire for the first time since 2017 this season.
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. He has also assisted with short track content and social media, among other duties he takes/has taken on for the site. In 2025, he became an official member of the National Motorsports Press Association. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight coordinator in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.