In the spirit of Tom Bowles, I’ll start with a question: Did you notice that the field for Friday’s (May 22) NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway is stacked with talent?
Not only are the great crop of full-time truckers, such as points leader Kaden Honeycutt, Layne Riggs and Ty Majeski, among others, in the race, but Friday’s field includes a plethora of big names that should make the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 a great show.
That’s assuming Mother Nature holds up her end of the bargain and doesn’t dump a biblical flood on Concord, which will probably happen now.
Anyway, 38 trucks are on the entry list for the 10th race of the 2026 Truck Series season, meaning two drivers will miss the show. That will make qualifying a thrill in and of itself.
Once the field is set, Friday’s race has plenty of stars who are likely to compete for the win. But the biggest superstar in the field will likely run mid-pack.
That’s Travis Pastrana, who will drive the Kaulig/RAM No. 25 on Friday evening in his first Truck race since Daytona in February. It’s always fun to see Pastrana, an X-Games gold medalist and jack of all trades in regard to entertainment, come back to NASCAR.
The race is also a huge one for RAM because it marks the start of the second half of the regular season. The Coke 600 is usually where most Cup teams begin to judge where they’re truly at in comparison to the field, and it’s time for the RAM trucks to do the same. So far, they’ve been painfully average, which was probably to be expected in their maiden voyage.
Another interesting entry in Friday’s race is the No. 5 TRICON Garage Toyota of William Sawalich. The 19-year-old is in his second year of O’Reilly Series competition but has completely turned things around after an abysmal rookie season. His development has been fascinating to watch, and while consistency is still needed in his game, his first win at Rockingham proved he has plenty of talent. He could be in the mix for the win on Friday alongside fellow O’Reilly Series driver Brandon Jones, who will drive the TRICON No. 1.
Five Cup Series regulars will also partake in some Friday night truckin’. Cup Series teammates Connor Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen will each drive Spire trucks, as will Dover winner Kyle Busch. Ross Chastain will reprise his role in the No. 45 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also coming back to drive the No. 4 Chevy for Niece.
It’s easy to say that Busch, the winningest driver in Truck Series history with 69 wins, is the race’s prohibitive favorite. But he has at least looked human in recent Truck races, even if his Dover win appeared to be a return to form.
Zilisch is, in my opinion, the most interesting driver in the field for this race. He’s obviously incredibly talented, and many, including myself, have labeled him as NASCAR’s next big thing.
He is, however, relatively inexperienced in the Truck Series, running only nine races in the series over the past three years. And while he did finish second at Watkins Glen, racing on a normal oval will be a better litmus test for Zilisch as he drives a vehicle much more similar to the Next Gen car than the O’Reilly Series car.
Van Gisbergen will also be a driver to watch, if for no other reason than to see how much he’s improved on ovals. The Coke 600 was actually one of SVG’s best oval races of 2025, as he finished 14th.
When it’s all said and done, I expect Friday’s race to come down to a battle between Busch and Chastain, the latter of which will do and has done anything in order to win a race.
I’d argue that a race for the win between a pair of Cup stars currently in the midst of slumps would be a delicious appetizer for what should be a great weekend of racing across multiple disciplines.
Friday will also be the first of three races on the weekend for Chastain and Zilisch as they look to run all 1,100 available miles at CMS. The focus will rightly be on Katherine Legge this weekend as she looks to complete the Indy 500-Coke 600 ‘Double,’ but Zilisch and Chastain running three races/1100 miles in three days would be impressive nonetheless.
All in all, Friday’s race should be a thriller for Truck Series fans and a worthy race to kick off what is as close to a home game as one can get in the wild world of NASCAR racing.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.