When Gio Ruggiero went NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series racing in 2025, he faced an understandable learning curve — yet still put up numbers. Just over a year later, the defending Rookie of the Year is a premier contender.
Ruggiero grew up in Seekonk, a Massachusetts suburb of Providence, Rhode Island. He began racing at 11 at the famed Seekonk Speedway — a twice-a-year stop on the Whelen Modified Tour. But instead of racing the ground pounders, he drove Bandolero and Legend cars, eventually traveling across the Northeast before first participating in Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Summer Shootout. He then transitioned into Late Models, driving for Anthony Campi Racing in Florida before moving to North Carolina at just 15 to further pursue a racing career.
In 2023, Ruggiero signed with Toyota Racing Development and Wilson Motorsports, embarking on a super late model schedule. He won the prestigious Winchester 400 that fall, setting up his debut in the ARCA Menards Series the next year.
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Ruggiero contested the entire East Series schedule in 2024, finishing third in points after winning the season opener at Five Flags Speedway. He made a handful of additional ARCA starts, finishing second three times.
Soon after turning 18, Ruggiero had a full-time ride at Tricon Garage, piloting the team’s No. 17 Toyota. But he had made just one start in any series on ovals larger than a mile.
“It definitely was the biggest jump so far in my career, going from super late model racing right to Trucks,” Ruggiero told NASCAR.com this week. “It was definitely a super big learning deal for me, and had some growing pains as well to start, but I think what made it easier was racing for Tricon and having a team with super fast trucks and really good teammates.
“I had Corey [Heim] my first year, which was great to have him as a teammate and kind of be able to try and learn from him. And really the biggest learning point for me for the mile-and-a-half stuff is just the dirty air. It’s so tough at first trying to figure out how to set up passes, and really just race craft is so much different than short-track racing, so that was the biggest part of the learning curve for me, and I feel like once I figured that out, I definitely had a lot more success and just better results.”
Despite the steep adjustment, Ruggiero nearly made the playoffs in his maiden campaign. He finished the regular season with three top-six finishes in the final four races but ultimately missed the postseason by just 12 markers.
Two months later, Ruggiero wheeled to a win at Talladega Superspeedway, leading 37 of 90 laps and bookending a stretch of three consecutive top-four results. For someone who had never raced in the draft before 2025, he’s pretty good at it. He has two career second-place Daytona finishes, as well as a win in the ARCA race there this spring.
And Ruggiero’s honestly not sure why that’s a strong suit.
“Our trucks just had so much speed at the superspeedways, and that made it a lot easier for me,” he said. “You have to be cautiously aggressive, and I feel like that’s something I was good at last year, and just being really patient at the superspeedways is important. Just starting off in the trucks, I was probably a little bit more timid than I am now, and I think that may have just kind of helped me at the superspeedways.”
Around the same time as Ruggiero’s Talladega victory, Tricon added veteran crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz to the organization’s competition staff, later announcing him as crew chief of the No. 17 Toyota. Ruggiero worked with Jerame Donley in 2025, with Donley moving to the team’s No. 1 all-star truck for this season.
Stankiewicz previously served as shot-caller for Grant Enfinger, before that working with Sheldon Creed in ARCA, Trucks and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. With Creed, he won the 2020 Truck Series title.
“[Tricon] felt like they were wanting to do something different with Gio, try and get a better working relationship with him,” Stankiewicz told NASCAR.com. “I didn’t really know a whole lot about Gio when [competition director Matt Puccia] first brought it to my attention, and I kind of did some research on him and looked at the stats and was honestly pretty impressed with his rookie, first-year stats in the Truck Series.
“It’s a learning curve. I got to keep reminding myself that he’s only 19 years old, and he still has a long way to go. But he’s excelling really fast, and I’m very impressed at how hard he works at this.”
So far, so good for the first-year pairing. Through 11 races, Ruggiero has four top fives and six top 10s, ranking fifth in points and above former champions like Ty Majeski and Ben Rhodes. But that still doesn’t tell the full story.
At Texas, Ruggiero drove from fourth to the lead before a caution with three laps to go set up an overtime restart. Carson Hocevar cleared him on the jump, but while battling three-wide for second on the final lap, Ruggiero slid up the track and plummeted outside the top 10. A week later at Watkins Glen, Ruggiero was penalized for jumping a restart from the lead, with NASCAR officials confirming afterward he should not have been penalized. At Dover, a flat tire derailed a potential top-five effort.
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“Just really need to finish these races off, minimize mistakes and just execute a good day all around from all perspectives,” Ruggiero said. “Sometimes that’s just the way it goes in racing. You lose some that you should have won, and sometimes you’ll run into a win [where you] shouldn’t have won the race. The way that I look at it, I’ve always kind of had this evaluation of it, but if you’re going to win three races, you probably should have been in contention for five or six of them to get that three. That’s just how racing works. There’s always so much that could go wrong or right, and you really need to have speed multiple times just to get one win.”
Ruggiero’s average start is more than four positions better than last year. His average running position is up over two positions as well, good for third among series regulars. He also ranks third in quality passes and fourth in driver rating.
Why the big jump, and why right now?
“Just probably going back to the same race tracks again with notes,” Stankiewicz said. “Him being able to go back to that race track, understand the tendencies of the race track, understand the tendencies of the race car from the start of the race to the end of the race, too, has been a big thing for him to understand, what the tracks do when they take rubber.
“When we unload and execute, we have an opportunity to run in the top five week in and week out … There’s a little disappointment on the front we haven’t won, but we also feel very confident that we are maintaining top five in points, getting good stage points, unloading with good speed off the truck.”
Stankiewicz believes the team isn’t far from championship-caliber. Michigan International Speedway lies ahead this Saturday (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), a place where Ruggiero contended and led laps last year before suffering damage in a late crash. But it won’t be until late September when the tailgaters return to intermediates. Two road courses and a slew of short ovals lie ahead, including his home race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
No matter where the series goes, Ruggiero’s confidence is clear. He’s hungry and looking to keep building his meteoric — yet possibly overlooked — rise in NASCAR.
“The competition and the series is so tough, which is why I love the Truck Series,” Ruggiero said. “I really like racing with all the Cup guys and I feel like I’ve learned a lot just really last year, but as well in the first few races this year racing with Cup guys and just racing up front for the win a couple times for the lead of these races has taught me a lot.
“I have a super big drive to succeed and win, which I feel like a lot of people do have, but also not as many as you may think have the determination that I feel.”