With the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series regular season in the books, all that stands between 10 drivers and a chance at NASCAR immortality is a seven-race stretch to the championship.
In that stretch, five of the tracks will be the one and only visit of the year for the Truck Series with sequels only taking place at Bristol in the Round of 10 and Martinsville to close the Round of 8.
New challenges will also be presented to this postseason crop of drivers as New Hampshire Motor Speedway returns to the series for the first time since 2017 and the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course will make its series debut to open the Round of 8.
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While the first round consists of familiar tracks like Darlington and Bristol, it’s the second round of the Roval, Talladega and Martinsville that have title hopefuls like Tyler Ankrum believing this year could bring surprise entrants into the Championship 4.
“The Round of 8 is tough. We can definitely see a mixed bag going to Phoenix,” Ankrum said Tuesday during playoff media day. “It’s probably a bracket of the playoffs where you’re just going to try to maximize your points. You can see a lot of different winners in those three races. I mean, I can’t remember the last time a playoff driver won Talladega. You’re just gonna look to the Round of 10 just to try to get a win under your belt, get those extra five playoff points, maximize your days, and just focus for the Round of 8. If you can make it past the Round of 10, you can easily see, like, if Corey Heim has three bad races, he’s not making it to Phoenix.”
Heim, the No. 11 Tricon Garage driver, has been the cream of the crop in the series for the last three years. He fell short of the Truck title at Phoenix in the last two seasons, but strung together seven wins and 62 playoff points in the regular season to set himself up for his best shot at the crown.
While it will be his first national series start at the Roval this postseason, Heim is confident in his road-course capabilities, especially after dominating and winning the inaugural event at Lime Rock Park earlier this year.
“I feel like the road-course stuff on my side has been really good as far as preparation this year and just understanding kind of what I need to do to attack the race track in a certain way,” Heim said. “I’ve got a very rough and slim idea of what I need to be successful at that track specifically. But I work with the 23XI [Racing] people a lot on their side and try to gauge where their Cup guys are making time on specific race tracks, such as Watkins Glen. As far as just overall preparation and development, it’s going to be tough to do, for sure, just with the lack of experience for me at that place. But, you know, Lime Rock, I’d never been there either and it was a pretty successful day for me, so just trying to sort of take the same mindset into that.”
The Round of 8 may generate teeth-clinching reactions for most of the Truck playoff field, but Chandler Smith is entering his postseason run with high hopes, having experience at both New Hampshire and the Roval.
“I’m personally all for it,” Smith said. “I’ve been to New Hampshire the past two years. I love that race track. I think it’ll put on a great race and I’m extremely happy to see it in the playoffs. Charlotte Roval? It’s what the fans want. They want excitement. Do I want to race on a road course in the playoff personally? I mean, hey, I embrace them. I love the challenge. I love being able to get better at road courses and each time is an opportunity once you go out on the race track and have a race on the road. Looking forward to hopefully just having a clean day there.”
The 2025 Truck Series Playoffs kick off Saturday, Aug. 30, at Darlington Raceway (Noon ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).