When the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour visits Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in 2025, race fans will have the opportunity to see a special tribute scheme hit the track.
Patrick Emerling, driver of the No. 1 Fleetworks Inc. Modified, will carry a special tribute scheme, throwing back to Geoffrey Bodine’s No. 1 Big Red Machine owned by Dick Armstrong. The scheme will be on the track for all three NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races.
The Whelen Modified Tour will visit Thompson on March 30, August 6 and October 12. All events will air live on FloRacing.TV.
Emerling won the opener of the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season at New Smyrna Speedway and also won three of five Tour-Type Modified events and the championship during the World Series week. He finished second in the championship standings in 2024 on the Whelen Modified Tour on the heels of three race wins in the debut year for the team.
Patrick Emerling’s tribute scheme honoring Geoffrey Bodine that will be on track at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on March 30.
“It’s an honor to be able to carry this scheme,” Emerling said. “Geoffrey was a true, hard-nosed Modified racer, who raced in a time where they ran multiple races per week. To be able to have his colors on the Fleetworks No. 1 is special to our team and we hope the fans will enjoy it. We’re looking forward to getting to Thompson and hoping to keep our momentum rolling.”
Bodine, who had 18 career NASCAR Cup Series wins, may be most well-known for taking the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 to Victory Lane at Martinsville Speedway in 1984. Driving for Rick Hendrick, Bodine captured victory during a time where Hendrick was considering shutting down the team. The win helped propel Hendrick into the future, now with 14 Cup Series championships and over 200 wins.
Outside of the NASCAR Cup Series, though – Bodine cut his teeth racing Modifieds at the short-tracks. Bodine competed in arguably the toughest era of Modified racing – racing against names like Richie Evans, Jimmy Spencer, Jerry Cook and more. Part of Bodine’s success came with Dick Armstrong as his car owner, specifically in the No. 1 Big Red Machine. Their Pinto won 55 races in one year in 1978. Bodine won countless marquee Modified events and championships, including three titles at Stafford Speedway and four of the first five runnings of the Thompson 300.
After two weeks off, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returns to action Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (9 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) to kick off three consecutive weeks of on-track action. The opening two races provided no shortage of story lines, so let’s get caught up before the Truck Series’ lone visit to Sin City in 2025.
Tricon Garage’s Corey Heim is the only driver to secure a spot in the playoffs so far, and it came in an anti-climatic, surprise fashion. Crossing the line second in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR officials declared Heim the winner after the Henderson Motorsports entry driven by Parker Kligerman was disqualified for being too low in the rear. The team appealed, but the ruling was upheld on Feb. 20.
Heim earned his 12th career victory, marking his fourth consecutive winning season in the Truck Series. Meanwhile, the disqualification denied Kligerman what would have been his fourth career victory. Kligerman is racing part-time in the Truck Series this season while he calls Xfinity Series races on The CW.
Two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch won at Atlanta Motor Speedway a week later, denying Stewart Friesen a victory and playoff berth in a thrilling photo finish.
Grant Enfinger tops the standings
Riding early season consistency, Grant Enfinger has a one-point advantage over reigning series champion Ty Majeski. With a pair of top 10s — including a fourth-place finish at Daytona — Enfinger leads the series with 25 stage points, four more than Majeski and Jack Wood. His average running position of 8.4 also leads the series, an impressive number after two drafting tracks.
Majeski also has a pair of top 10s with his best finish of 3rd coming at Daytona. Chandler Smith, who’s back in the Truck Series after two Xfinity Series seasons, is third in points — just five markers back of Enfinger. Heim (minus-16) and two-time champion Ben Rhodes (minus-19) round out the top five.
It’s certainly early, but coming off consecutive Championship 4 appearances, Enfinger has shown he has the speed in 2025 to make it a trifecta.
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Early season surprises
It’s hard to look beyond Gio Ruggiero as one of the most impressive story lines to begin the 2025 season. The Tricon Garage rookie has finished inside the top 11 in both races thus far, including a runner-up finish at Daytona — where he led 11 laps before ultimately falling short to Heim. Transitioning from late models, the 18-year-old has limited experience in big-bodied stock cars with just 10 ARCA Menards Series starts. He ran the full ARCA East campaign last year, but his victory at Five Flags Speedway and five top fives went under the radar to rising Xfinity Series stars William Sawalich and Connor Zilisch. So far, he’s proving his worth in the Truck Series.
While both have multiple years of experience in Trucks, Jake Garcia and Wood are off to solid starts — sitting ninth and 10th in points, respectively. Garcia, driver of the No. 13 Ford for ThorSport Racing, has two top-12 finishes but has yet to earn any stage points. Wood is on the other end of the spectrum, failing to record a top 20 so far for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing. Both drivers are looking for their first career playoff appearances.
Here are some drivers to pay attention to during Friday’s 134-lapper in Las Vegas.
RAJAH CARUTH: It’s been a dismal first two races for Caruth, who wrecked out at both Daytona and Atlanta and sits 30th in points. But as the defending winner at Las Vegas, it could be a great opportunity for the Spire Motorsports driver to quickly turn his season around.
DANIEL HEMRIC: Coming off a Cup Series season with Kaulig Racing, Hemric has big expectations this season with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing. In his first Truck Series campaign since 2016, Las Vegas sets up well for the 34-year-old. He finished 19th in both Cup starts last year and has eight top 10s in 11 Xfinity starts at the 1.5-mile oval.
LAYNE RIGGS: A two-time winner last year, Riggs hasn’t finished better than 13th in the first two races this season. Sitting 12th in points, intermediates are a place for improvement for the second-year driver as he had just one top 10 (second in Kansas fall race) at that type of track last year. If Riggs wants to contend for the title this year, he needs more consistency at larger tracks — and he can prove that this weekend.
MATT CRAFTON: Outside of a stage victory at Daytona, it’s been tough sledding so far for the three-time series champion. He sits 20th in points and is approaching a winless streak of nearly five years. But in 28 career races at Las Vegas, Crafton has 11 top fives and an average finish of 10.9. Friday could be a great opportunity for the 48-year-old to get back on the board for ThorSport.
CONNOR MOSACK: In his first full-time NASCAR campaign, Mosack has shown his raw talent and speed. He won the pole at Atlanta and led 30 laps before ultimately finishing 25th. He finished third at Homestead-Miami Speedway last year, and while his results at Las Vegas might not pass the eye test, Mosack — who’s often recognized as a road-course ringer — could be a driver to gamble on Friday night.
Chris Graythen | Getty Images
Three races, three weeks
Friday’s race at Las Vegas kicks off a stretch of three races in three weeks for the Truck Series. After a trip out west, the trucks head to Homestead-Miami Speedway — slotted in the regular season for the first time since 2021.
Kyle Larson will compete in a Spire Motorsports truck as he looks to pull off a rare tripleheader weekend, also driving for Hendrick Motorsports in the Xfinity and Cup Series. Enfinger, who clinched a spot in the Championship 4 at Homestead last year, will look to defend his victory in the first of three races featured on FOX.
Afterward, the Truck Series makes its first stop at Martinsville Speedway for a Friday night duel under the lights. It’ll serve as an important test for the series regulars as Martinsville is one of just two tracks in both the regular season and postseason. William Byron will make a start for Spire, while young Modified star Luke Baldwin will make his NASCAR national series debut.
Christopher Bell completed his three-peat on Sunday in the desert, and his fellow drivers will have difficulty bumping him off the top spot if he and crew chief Adam Stevens maintain this torrid pace.
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series contenders after the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway and before the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Analysis: Another race, another stunner by Bell as he leads a race-high 105 laps and overcomes his teammate in fantastic fashion at Phoenix to claim a third straight Cup Series win. There’s no slowing he and crew chief Adam Stevens — arguably the best tandem in the sport — with a slew of strong tracks for the No. 20 driver still on the immediate horizon. Though he’s yet to actually win at Las Vegas, Bell has a pair of runner-up finishes there in the past three races, along with three poles from 2022 on and a race-high 155 laps led last fall. Four in a row is absolutely in play.
Analysis: Byron is having a stellar season so far, but it’s being overshadowed (understandably) by what Bell is doing. Despite Bell’s trio of wins, however, Byron is still the points leader by virtue of an exceptional penchant for stage points, and it’s extremely likely this trend continues, especially at Vegas. The 2023 winner of this race seemingly always has speed out west, leading in four straight races there and 10 of the past 12.
Analysis: Larson was in a great spot to potentially win his first race of 2025 on the final restart at Phoenix had things gone sour between Bell and Denny Hamlin, but the teammates were able to race cleanly enough to both stay in front of No. 5, who brought it home right behind them in third. So, we were quite close to wondering if Larson was going to make it two in a row this weekend because his Vegas history is unreal. He has top fives in nearly half of his 17 starts and has two wins and a runner-up in the last four outings there alone. If Bell will be stopped this weekend, Larson is the most likely to do it. | MORE: Hamlin, Larson just short at Phoenix in chase of Bell
Analysis: Short of wrecking his teammate, there wasn’t a whole lot else Hamlin could have done to keep it in front of Bell on the final lap, so he’ll have to settle for his best finish of the season as Sunday’s runner-up. He’ll now try to build on that to find some much-needed momentum at Vegas, where No. 11 has almost always been well-above average but didn’t break through for his first (and, to date, only) win until 2021. | MORE: Larson’s view of how Hamlin lost race at Phoenix
Analysis: This says more about his strong qualifying efforts than anything, but, perhaps notably, Reddick has finished worse than he started in three of the season’s four races (and four in five, if you count The Clash). That may be worth keeping an eye on as the season continues, but for now, it feels like he actually could trend toward his first career Vegas win potentially this weekend. After starting 18th in this race last year, he maneuvered his way all the way to the front to finish runner-up in every stage.
Analysis: Elliott has just a pair of top 10s this season to go with his … pair of laps led … yet the 2020 Cup Series champion remains fifth in the standings thanks to his strong 31.0 points per race average so far. That could come to a screeching halt at Vegas, however, as No. 9 has a curious-at-best history at the Nevada track. Elliott has several strong runs there and had a five-race stretch of finding the front of the field from 2019-21 but overall has no wins, a 19.6 average finish and has not found the top 10 there since 2022.
Analysis: Blaney has scored fewer and fewer points in each race so far this season … which would be a problem if he didn’t set such a high bar in the Daytona 500 with 51 of them. Thus, the 2023 champ is still fourth in the standings despite dwindling returns, but he surely would’ve had more than 22 at Phoenix had his engine not expired and sent him to a P28 finish. A recovery could be in order this weekend at Vegas, where Blaney has yet to win but has led in eight of the past 11 races.
Analysis: We’ve seen bouts of consistently strong finishes from Bowman before, but this one feels like it could stick as he’s shown speed on a variety of tracks so far en route to what would be a career-best 12.0 average finish and three top 10s in the first four races. While he has just five top 10s in 15 Vegas starts, No. 48 is a recent spring race winner there and actually has four top fives from 2020 onward. He’s a dark-horse candidate to dethrone Mr. Bell.
Analysis: We’re four races into 2025, and Busch has already amassed 30% of the top-10 finishes that he had from last year’s 36-race campaign — certainly what you want to see if you’re a “Rowdy” fan. We’ll see if the Las Vegas native can keep it rolling at his home track, which he hasn’t won at since 2009 (his only victory) but where he did turn in a strong third-place run in his first year with RCR in the fall.
Analysis: Logano looked great for much of the weekend at Phoenix, nearly snagging the pole and still leading 83 laps out in the desert … but the reigning champ walked out of Arizona still without a single top 10 this season as frustration begins to mount with the No. 22 team. Nothing that a good ol’ trip to Vegas can’t fix for Logano and Co., though, as the three-time title winner has won four races there from 2019 on and is the most recent victor, having won there in the fall to vault him into the Championship 4.
Analysis: Buescher said in his press conference on Saturday that he used to “hate” coming to Phoenix, but after his fourth straight top 10 and third top five in that span, No. 17 probably won’t mind coming back here in the fall, especially if he’s still in title contention. His championship mettle will get a true test this weekend at Vegas, where, yes, he did finish in the top 10 last fall, but it was just his second such finish in 16 starts there, with the other coming all the way back in 2020. | MORE: Three Up, Three Down: Phoenix
Analysis: Wallace clearly has speed this year, yet thanks to unlucky circumstances, is on pace for his worst average finish (21.8) since he collected a single top 10 in his 2019 sophomore campaign for Richard Petty Motorsports (23.9). Though he did scrape together a P4 in this race in 2023, Wallace could continue to slip at Vegas, where No. 23 has a rough 22.2 average finish and just a pair of top 10s across his 14 starts, with laps led in just one of them. | MORE: Wallace mashes outside wall hard after flat right-front tire
Analysis: There’s still a good deal of hope Chastain will be competing for wins in a big way this year, but with just one top 10 and his worst average finish since his Chip Ganassi Racing days so far, he’s got a ways to go before that feels like it could actually happen. That could change this weekend, however, as Chastain has been quite good at Vegas under the Trackhouse Racing banner, with five top-seven finishes in the last six races there.
Analysis: Gilliland finished 27th in the flukiest race of the year so far (Daytona) but otherwise has been a top-15 presence since, nearly turning in his third such finish in as many weeks but falling just shy at Phoenix (17th). And now, for the gut check — Gilliland has yet to finish better than 23rd at Las Vegas in six tries, and that result came in his first start there in 2022, averaging a finish of 27.6 since. If he’s able to turn in his best career showing there this weekend, there could be something here.
Analysis: Briscoe had an amazing week until he didn’t, with his team winning its appeal from a Daytona penalty (and subsequent reinstatement of his points) before getting caught up in the Stage 2 fracas at Phoenix and only adding another two tallies onto his total. It’s still a far departure from where he was a week ago at the bottom of the standings, and he’ll gladly take the incremental forward momentum heading into a track where he has just one top 10 in eight attempts for a 22.8 average finish. | MORE: Briscoe, Haley, Keselowski involved in Phoenix melee during Stage 2
Analysis: It’s been a somewhat frustrating start for McDowell, who clearly seems to have cars capable of competing each week but thus far has yet to land a top 10 despite what was shaping up to be a super positive weekend in Phoenix. Even still, No. 71 is on pace for his best career average finish — an average finish that very likely is going to take a hit this weekend at Vegas, where McDowell has never finished in the top 10 in 22 starts.
Analysis: Everything has to be taken with a grain of salt right now until we get a little further into the schedule, but credit where it’s due — JHN has put together a strong season so far, on pace to better his best career average finish (22.4) by nearly 10 positions (12.8) through four races. It’s easy to think that could come to an abrupt end at Vegas, but I’m here to tell you that it very possibly will not, as Nemechek turned in a ninth-place run there just last fall.
Analysis: Obviously, this is the case for several drivers so far, and it won’t wind up being the case for many of them, but Stenhouse is among those on pace for a career-best average finish (15.5). Why it’s particularly notable for him, though, is that he’s also on pace for a career-worst average start (27.3), so he’s finding ways to move through the field successfully, which could be a sign of things to come for the veteran. Both of his Las Vegas top 10s (one of which was a top five) came in the spring race there, but they stand as the lonely pair among 19 total starts.
Analysis: Hocevar was not spared from Spire Motorsports’ nightmare afternoon at Phoenix, which started dream-like when the cars lined up and all three drivers started in the top eight. He hasn’t quite shown what he’s capable of at Vegas yet — though he was 15th in this race last year — but it’s a fast track, and he’s a fast driver. Only a matter of time before it clicks.
Analysis: Josh Berry … Cup Series factor? It’s starting to look that way, and if the No. 21 car truly is an extension of Team Penske as a pseudo fourth car, there’s an excellent chance the 34-year-old sophomore will be adept enough to adapt to his new digs right away and potentially compete for a playoff spot. With Las Vegas — a strong Penske track — being the venue for two of his five career Xfinity Series wins, there’s an outside chance he picks up his provisional playoff spot this weekend before his satellite teammates, including the reigning champion. | MORE: Berry capitalizes on Team Penske’s strengths at Phoenix
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is back in action this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Ecosave 200 (9 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The NASCAR Xfinity Series travels to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where the field looks to leave its mark in the LiUNA! on Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR heads to the Nevada desert for the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
It seems virtually absurd now — as he sits on the verge of equaling two seven-time Cup champions — but Christopher Bell’s ambition once nearly got the better of him.
It seems just as odd that someone blessed with one of the most cherubic faces in motorsports would be so antsy about his NASCAR career.
The rosy-cheeked Bell looks like he’s 30 going on 13. His prodigious talent has cemented him on can’t-miss prospect lists for years.
But midway through the 2019 season, Bell was a rising star with a 2017 Truck championship, a 2018 Xfinity title race appearance and an unshakable belief that he belonged in the Cup Series yesterday.
“I think the best way for me to win at the Cup level is to get there and start trying at it,” he told reporters during a national call on July 31, 2019. “Everyone is saying that they’re moving guys up too quick, and the difference is that I’m 23 years old. I’m not 18, 19 or even 20 years old.
“I’ve got a lot of racing experience, and right now I feel like I’m in my prime as a race car driver. If the opportunity comes to go Cup racing next year, I definitely don’t want to waste another year in my prime, so to speak, of not learning and not getting that experience of Cup racing.”
On its face, that bold statement could be taken as extremely confident but also a tad audacious and maybe a little selfish. The words landed hard in the upper levels of management at Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota Racing Development, which subsequently counseled Bell to temper his opinions (especially when they could be viewed as unwittingly denigrating the ladder series).
Bell typically eschews headline-making bluster in favor of letting his results do the talking. He quickly clarified the remarks and holstered speculation about his future.
But during a post-race news conference Sunday after making history as the first with three consecutive victories in the Next Gen car, he candidly provided overdue context about why he was so anxious to reach the Cup Series five years ago.
“Whenever I got into full-time Trucks (in 2015), I was 21 years old,” Bell said in the Phoenix Raceway media center. “At that time Erik Jones was in the Cup Series, younger than me. Chase Elliott was in the Cup Series, younger than me. I was like, ‘Man, I have to get to the Cup Series tomorrow, otherwise I’m not going to make it.’ ”
His sense of urgency has been vindicated. Bell was promoted from Xfinity for the 2020 season and then replaced Jones in JGR’s No. 20 Toyota for 2021.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
Since then in the Cup Series, Bell has 12 victories, two championship round berths and a very real chance he could become the first to win four in a row since Jimmie Johnson in 2007.
None of which would have seemed possible when he signed with Toyota in 2014 to run 15 Late Model races in hopes of making the difficult transition from dirt to asphalt.
“It’s unbelievable to look back,” Bell said Sunday after becoming only the second driver in JGR’s storied history to win three consecutive races. “It seemed like it was so far away to be here today in this moment. Looking back at it, it felt like it happened overnight.”
That perspective also was warped by the excellence of his current Cup peers. Many are younger than Bell, and that age gap heightened the tension.
By the end of Bell’s rookie season in Cup, Chase Elliott was the 2020 champion, William Byron was a race winner, and a formerly unheralded driver from Norman, Oklahoma, who entered NASCAR with no stock-car pedigree understandably was freaked out about meeting expectations.
He had been fretting since joining the driver development program at TRD, which literally invested tens of millions of dollars in his progression after executives David Wilson, Tyler Gibbs and Jack Irving saw that Bell was for real.
But there were irritating signs of self-doubt for their emerging phenom.
As Truck teammates at Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2016, Bell managed only one win to Byron’s seven with future Cup crew chief Rudy Fugle. With Byron moving to the Xfinity Series in 2017, Bell pleaded with team owner Kyle Busch to match him with Fugle the next year. The pairing happened and he won a Truck title.
“(Byron) kicked my butt (in 2016),” Bell said. “He just outperformed me. I remember having a conversation with Kyle Busch in the fall of 2016 after Homestead. I said, ‘Kyle, I have to be paired with that team.’ I needed to prove to myself or learn if I can do this or not. If I can’t do this, I’m going to try and be a sprint car driver.
“Kyle, I think, had reservations of pairing me with Rudy Fugle for 2017. Thank God he did.”
Chris Trotman | Getty Images
Bell has done the rest, though. With each passing week, that 2019 proclamation of being an inevitable force in Cup seems much more prophetic than presumptuous.
This is the heady list of Cup drivers with four consecutive victories: Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Harry Gant, Bill Elliott, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Johnson.
Bell will be a heavy favorite to join them at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he dominated last year and has two pole positions and two runner-up finishes. And if he does win, it again would prove why he was right about reaching the big leagues as soon as humanly possible.
As it turned out, it was only a matter of time until the Christopher Bell Era began in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Why would he squander a second of such potential greatness?
Teddy Hodgdon Racing announced today their schedule for the 2025 season in the No. 55 Modified – one that will bring the team up and down the East Coast.
For the first time in his career, driver Teddy Hodgdon will make five NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour starts. His debut will take place during the Icebreaker 150 on March 30 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.
Hodgdon will compete in all three NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events at Thompson as part of the FloRacing Connecticut Challenge – a three-race series that offers $25,000 in total cash.
Team owners who compete in all three Thompon events that have not competed on the Tour in the last three years, or ever, are eligible for the bonus cash. Hodgdon will also run NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events at both North Wilkesboro Speedway (May 18) and Martinsville Speedway (October 23).
After scoring his first two Modified career wins last year, Hodgdon is ready for a major step up in 2025, with a challenging schedule on tap.
“I’m excited to say the least,” Hodgdon said. “The opportunity to race on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is something all Modified racers look forward to doing in their career when coming up through the ranks at local short tracks.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been more excited for a race season.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Early on in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway, Ryan Preece rocketed through the field with superhero-style strength. With his No. 60 RFK Racing Ford equipped with softer, high-grip “option” Goodyear tires, he charged from 33rd place to 10th in just 11 laps, reaching third and harvesting extra points at the end of the brief 60-lap first stage.
That’s when Preece, in his first season with RFK, almost had a pivotal early moment in the chemistry-building process with his new crew chief.
“Good driving, driver,” veteran Derrick Finley called out over the No. 60 radio.
“I know we passed cars,” Preece replied. “I don’t want a kiss, though.”
“Good,” Finley shot back. “I didn’t want to.”
The jokingly offered incentive was a callback to the previous week’s race at Circuit of The Americas, where Finley tried to coax his driver to make up ground on the front-runners. That was a one-week offer, Finley said with a laugh later, but a bigger reward than a smooch was on the No. 60 team’s mind.
Preece and Co. were the first to alter the script to Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500, making the first lunge for the option tire with the red-lettered sidewalls. The effect was a sudden jolt into the scoreboard’s upper reaches, and though the strategy later came undone, both the 15th-place finish and the 34 laps led were season bests.
“So a 15th, that wasn’t phenomenal, but certainly with the situation that was playing out with being off sequence, you know what, after the past three weeks, it’s been a real kick in the nuts,” said Preece, who opened the season with finishes of 32nd, 18th and 33rd. “So it felt good to actually have a good points day.”
Sunday’s 312-miler was the Cup Series’ third-ever race and first this year that provided teams with two Goodyear tire choices — a baseline “prime” tire with traditional yellow lettering on the sidewalls, and two sets of the soft-compound reds or “option” tires that produced far better grip and speed at the expense of higher wear at the end of a green-flag run.
Ten caution periods — the most at Phoenix in five years — threw a variable into how some strategies might develop. The No. 60 team pounced on the first one after a Lap 10 stack-up, fastening up reds and collecting stage points in the process.
A late-race tire gambit also nearly found pay dirt. Finley didn’t go for option tires when the rest of the top 15 did for the start of the final stage. A caution flag with 97 laps to go opened the door for another alternate route, and Preece zoomed from 13th place to the lead in 12 laps on the team’s last set of reds. That’s where the No. 60 group stood with a nearly three-second advantage when another yellow flag for debris on Lap 268 foiled their hopes for a green-flag run to the end.
“It was kind of a cat-and-mouse game,” Finley told NASCAR.com. “Depending on how the cautions fell was going to basically determine your race. We saw that, for us, we were going to go for something big and we did. So we kind of got on the opposite side of what people were doing, so I thought that was an easy thing to do, but it’s not because you’re trying to predict what the other guys are doing. I was trying to do the opposite of that. Had it played out differently, who knows? But as it was, we’ll take the stage points and the 15th and know that we were going for something big.”
A similar tack was employed by the No. 22 Team Penske Ford team and defending Cup Series champion Joey Logano, helping them try to preserve a solid finish after an early-race penalty for a restart violation. Logano began Stage 2 in 24th place after the punishment, but with option tires bolted on, the No. 22 team radio brimmed with optimism: “No reason why we can’t win this stage right here.”
Logano led big chunks of Stage 2, bypassing eventual winner Christopher Bell to complete his rally. Bell eventually slipped back by Logano for the stage victory, regaining the top spot once the No. 22 Ford’s tires gave out. Like Preece’s team, No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe had hoped for a long green-flag run to round out the day, but the remaining flurry of cautions left Logano to fight for a 13th-place result. Even then, Wolfe appreciated the challenge that the tire-choice format presented.
“The tire worked well. I mean, it did exactly what I think NASCAR was going for, so kudos to NASCAR and Goodyear for that,” Wolfe told NASCAR.com. “You know, we just obviously got behind the 8-ball when we had the penalty, and they gave us the option to get back up there. But then it was a question, when do you use that second set? You know, not understanding how the cautions would fall at the end of the race, we probably could have done something a little different at the end to maybe get a little better finish, but overall, I thought the tire part of it worked out well.”
Preece also shared in the commendations, not just from a competition standpoint but also in how it transformed a race where he started a deep 28th in the 37-car field.
“These races have just become so tough to get off sequence, and it creates options,” Preece said. “And if you look at it, the way this race played out, we used a set early. We were taking our lumps. Luckily had a caution. Then we used them off sequence, wished the caution didn’t come out. And then those last two, three runs, there were cautions and you were wondering, ‘when’s that red going to give up?’ And to be honest with you, it gave up on some of them. So that was a lot of fun, and I applaud Goodyear and everybody in NASCAR for doing this, because it’s taking a risk.”
Risk-taking also suited Finley, who helped Preece to a six-spot jump in the early Cup Series standings.
“From a crew chief perspective, especially an old one like me whose nerves are about shot, it’s kind of crazy,” Finley said. “But I do like the fact that it mixes up. All the teams have gotten to the point where they play their statistical game, where everyone has their races mapped out, and everything’s pretty ho-hum, and what it does do is it adds that sense of, ‘hey, there’s something new you can do. There’s something different you can try.’ So from that aspect, I enjoy it. It brings back more of the old school that way.”
Goodyear officials indicated there are no immediate plans for another tire-choice race on the schedule, but haven’t ruled out the possibility. A tire test scheduled Monday at the 1-mile Arizona oval is framed around the objective of developing a single tire that keeps tire management and wear in the equation for Phoenix and similar tracks.
Should option tires make another appearance, the risk vs. reward factor will be along for the ride — just so long as the reward doesn’t involve puckering up.
“I’d rather just … you could just thank me,” Preece said. “So yeah, it’s fun.”
Merritt Speedway has been a staple of dirt-track racing in the state of Michigan for nearly 40 years.
Founded by Gene and Maryann Kregear and opened for the first time in 1968, the track has played host to some of the greatest dirt racers in the country through the years.
A decade ago, the track was acquired by Mike Blackmer, a veteran track owner and promoter who had previously operated another Michigan short track, Berlin Raceway.
“When I was a kid, I used to attend (races) at Merritt Speedway,” Blackmer recalled. “In 1985, I moved to Grand Rapids. I met a friend there, and he introduced me to Berlin Raceway. That would have been about 1987.
“In 2008, I ended up purchasing Berlin Raceway. I promoted Berlin Raceway from 2008-12. I sold it and then moved back to Northern Michigan and ended buying Merritt Speedway in 2015.
“I never thought I would be a dirt track owner, ever.”
In the years since, Blackmer has worked hard to make Merritt a premier dirt racing facility in the state of Michigan, but he felt like something was missing. That’s why this year the track will be part of the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series.
“I have been thinking about changing to NASCAR’s sanction for maybe five years now,” Blackmer said. “The time wasn’t right. It was right around COVID time and all that. It just wasn’t right.
“Becoming NASCAR sanctioned, I think it’s great for everyone. It’s going to be good for my racers, it’s going to be good for the fans, and it’ll be good for the track to have something different. I’m really excited to be part of it.”
Late Models will be Merritt Speedway’s NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I class during the 2025 racing season. (Photo: Courtesy of Merritt Speedway)
Blackmer is the first to admit Merritt Speedway has struggled in recent years, but he’s not giving up on the three-eighths-mile clay oval.
He considers the addition of the NASCAR as the track’s sanctioning body a reset of sorts for the track, which will open its gates for the 2025 season on May 17.
“The last couple years have been rough as a promoter. It’s probably been two of my hardest years in racing,” said Blackmer, who recently sold another track he operated to focus all of his attention on Merritt. “I sold my other race track this past winter, and now I’m going to concentrate on one race track. If there was a time to make changes, this year was it.
“For a dirt race track, it’s probably one of the nicest dirt tracks you’ll attend. It’s clean, it has some of the best racing. It’s always had good racing. I call it the premier dirt track in Michigan. It’s just a great place to come watch dirt track racing.”
Located off East Houghton Lake Road in Lake City, Michigan, Merritt Speedway sits on the edge of a wooded area that is deeply engrained in the history of the facility.
Original Merritt owners Gene and Maryann Kregear also owned a logging truck company, which they eventually sold to their son-in-law Ed VanDuinen and daughter Carmen.
Ed and Carmen VanDuinen eventually took ownership of Merritt. It was during their time as owners of Merritt that the track’s most historic race, the Wood Tic, was born.
Even after Ed and Carmen VanDuinen sold the track, the Wood Tic has remained a staple of the annual schedule at Merritt. This year, the 37th running of the Wood Tic will be held on Aug. 1-2.
“Around our area is forest products, where they go and cut the trees down and bring it to (mills),” Blackmer explained. “The guy that owned Merritt at the time also owned a forest company too, so they named the race the Wood Tic. We call it the Ed VanDuinen Wood Tic.”
Another major event on the Merritt Speedway schedule this takes place July 3-5. The event, a special 4th of July Weekend race, will include fireworks on July 4 and a $5 ticket night on July 5.
“We probably put on one of the best fireworks shows in Northern Michigan,” Blackmer said.
Late Models will serve as Merritt Speedway’s NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I class. The track will also feature Modifieds, Factory Stocks, Pro Stocks and 4-Cylinders on a weekly basis. Click here to see the full Merritt Speedway schedule for 2025.
Blackmer is looking forward to a new season of racing at Merritt Speedway and is hopeful a fresh start under the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series banner will bring fresh faces to the historic dirt track.
“I’ve been very honest with NASCAR and everybody,” Blackmer said. “I’ve been a promoter since 2008, and the last couple of years have been rough. We’ve got our work cut out for us to be the premier dirt track in Michigan. This is the start by having the NASCAR sanction.
“I’m looking forward to the future. I think the future is going to be very good for Merritt Speedway.”
