The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is on race five of a season-high stretch of six consecutive race weekends with Friday night‘s stop at Nashville Superspeedway for the Rackley Roofing 200 (8 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Championship frontrunner Cory Heim — who will be making his third NASCAR Cup Series start for 23XI Racing on Sunday night — collected his fourth Truck series trophy of the season with a dominant performance last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, extending his lead atop the standings to 100 points heading into Friday night‘s race. The driver of the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota has twice as many wins (four) and has led three times as many laps (754) as anyone else and only finished outside the top 10 twice in the 11 races to date this year — all series best statistics.
RELATED: Nashville schedule | Truck standings
Heim, however, has never won at Nashville. He has two top-five finishes in three starts, crashing out in his Nashville debut in 2022. He was a career-best third place last year.
Take the huge frontrunner Heim out of it, and the standings are a lot closer among the other title contenders. Front Row Motorsports‘ Chandler Smith, a two-race winner, is second to Heim but holds only a 10-point advantage over McAnally-Hilgemann Racing‘s Daniel Hemric and a 29-point cushion over Hemric‘s teammate Tyler Ankrum.
No current full-time drivers have ever won on the 1.33-mile Nashville oval.
Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Kyle Busch — who won both the 2010 and 2011 Nashville Truck races from pole position — will be making one of his limited season starts Friday, driving the No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.
Christian Eckes, who now races full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, led all 150 laps en route to the trophy last year in one of the most dominating showings in years.
Practice is at 4:05 p.m. ET Friday followed immediately by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 5:10 p.m. ET — both sessions airing live on FS1. Stewart Friesen won pole position last year and finished 11th. It‘s been three years since a polesitter also won the race — Ryan Preece last doing so in 2022.
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