HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — Joe Gibbs Racing announced today that Taylor Gray will drive the team’s No. 54 Toyota GR Supra full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2025. Gray, who currently races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, has competed part-time for the JGR Xfinity Series team this season.
The 19-year-old New Mexico native has enjoyed success at every stage of his young career. This season, Gray has earned a pair of top-five finishes in the Xfinity Series, including an eye-opening third-place result in his debut at Richmond Raceway in March. In the Truck Series, he qualified for the playoffs in his first full season on the strength of seven top-five finishes and 11 top-10s so far. Gray also enjoyed success in the ARCA Menards Series, with nine total victories across the series’ three platforms — national, east and west.
“I am very thankful for this opportunity,” Gray said. “I feel like I have learned a lot in the races I have ran this year, and we can build on that next season. Being able to work with Tyler (Allen, crew chief) and these guys for a few races has been a great head start on next season and getting that chemistry going, so I’m really excited about what we can do running together full-time.”
Gray is joining the winningest team in Xfinity Series history. Joe Gibbs Racing owns 214 wins, including 10 this year. Since the team’s inception, 23 different drivers have taken JGR to Victory Lane in the Xfinity Series, with 14 of those drivers claiming their first career victory in the series driving for JGR. The organization has earned four Xfinity Series driver championships and six owner’s championships.
“We’re looking forward to adding Taylor to our lineup full-time next year,” said Steve de Souza, executive vice president of Xfinity Series and development for JGR. “Taylor’s strong season in the Truck Series, along with his performance with us on the Xfinity side, have been impressive. With Taylor in the Xfinity car every week in 2025, we expect that trend to continue, and we’re looking forward to him competing for wins and the championship.”
Gray will be paired with crew chief Tyler Allen. So far this season, Allen has led his team to seven victories and the regular season owner’s championship.
There’s no way to spin it: Hendrick Motorsports’ odds of winning the championship took a hit when Alex Bowman summarily was removed from the playoffs by his Roval disqualification.
It’s simple math. If Hendrick had claimed half the Round of 8, the team potentially could own all of the Championship 4 — putting its 2024 title chances at 100 percent. The elimination of Bowman nullifies that scenario.
So there is no addition by subtraction — but there might be a silver lining.
Losing Bowman won’t enhance the likelihood of winning the championship, but it might increase the probability of having an unprecedented three title-eligible cars in the Nov. 10 season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
In eight editions of the four-round elimination playoff structure introduced in 2017, only twice have Cup teams advanced four cars to the Round of 8.
Neither of those teams won the championship — and what is perhaps more revelatory is how many of their cars made the championship round.
In 2016, Joe Gibbs Racing advanced Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards to the title race as Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth were ousted. In 2018, Stewart-Haas Racing managed only to qualify Kevin Harvick for the championship as Aric Almirola, Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer were eliminated.
It underscores what Joey Logano alluded to before the playoffs began when asked about the advantages of having perfect playoff attendance.
“Just odds, the odds of your team making it are better,” said Logano, the beneficiary of Bowman’s exclusion from the third round. “It also presents some hard questions that you have to answer, too.”
Those questions also come down to basic math — there aren’t enough hours in the day to guarantee the attention to detail for four championship entries vs. one. It’s the argument that Chase Briscoe has been making since winning the Southern 500 to capture the 16th and final playoff berth as the lone championship hope for Stewart-Haas Racing.
“I do think there’s a big advantage to being a four-car team and having only one car in,” Briscoe, who pulled off a mild surprise in reaching the second round, said before the playoffs began. “Those other four-car teams are trying to focus on all four of their cars bringing the best to the race track every single week. Preparing the race cars, we can take the personnel and best of the best from each car and just apply it to our car.”
The disparity between cars makes for some tough choices even for the best teams in NASCAR.
“When you put cars together, sometimes there are just better cars than others,” Logano said. “Yeah, we all have the same parts, and everything is really close, but some are better than others.
“When you make the decisions on who gets what, it’s a little harder with more cars in the playoffs than when you have one bullet. It’s easy to say all the effort goes in this car. This is our one chance to win the championship.
“So not that it’s better or worse, it’s just different. You’ve got to have it that way to have more opportunities to win the championship.”
At the outset of the playoffs, those opportunities seem much wider with the margins for error much larger. Yet as the races unfold, and the field shrinks, the degree of difficulty skyrockets for maintaining four championship-caliber cars.
The elimination of Bowman makes Hendrick’s path to a record 15th Cup championship more uncertain.
But it also is less complicated.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is the host of the NASCAR on NBC Podcast and also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
Zack Ore has raced at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C. for 10 years. Along the way, he’s coped with several second- and third-place finishes in the track’s Law Offices of John Barrow Sportsman Series division.
Having made a name for himself as one of Bowman Gray’s most aggressive drivers, Ore entered 2024 with a different mindset.
He wanted to be more calm and collected; he vowed to take whatever the track was giving him each night.
“In the past I have been a really aggressive racer, which has probably helped me in some situations, but hurt me,” Ore said. “So, I think that’s what kind of helped me figure out how to win the championship this year was a different mindset of not being as aggressive as I was in the past and mainly focusing on the bigger picture.”
The big picture displayed a great season. Ore finished with five wins and and 16 top fives at Bowman Gray, the legendary NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series bullring.
He won the track’s Sportsman division championship by eight points, and he scored 430 national points to secure the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II national championship.
Zack Ore celebrates with his family and crew after capturing the 2024 Sportsman division championship at Bowman Gray Stadium. (Photo: Erick Messer/Bowman Gray Stadium)
“It was awesome to finally accomplish that feat, and then it was also awesome to see we won the national division, too,” he said. “So, all around a great year.”
Ore wasn’t aware of his NASCAR national points standing until late in the season when a friend informed him. At that point, he began following the points each week, even after Bowman Gray’s season ended in August.
“I had not really ever paid attention to it,” he said. “And when it was finalized, that was awesome to accomplish another goal that I’ve never had before.”
Ore said success at Bowman Gray requires a lot of luck. The track draws for starting position each race, and passing is difficult on such a tight quarter-mile oval. He knew he had the equipment and skills to win: “It was just that the luck was going to be on our side,” he said.
Ore went into the season knowing he likely would battle defending champion Chase Robertson for the 2024 title, and that was exactly the case. After a race on the weekend of July 4, through the end of the season, there were never more than seven points separating the two drivers.
Ore entering the season finale had already tied his win total from the year prior, but he remained neck-and-neck with Robertson in the standings. After not drawing for a top-10 starting spot all season, he drew the pole position on championship night.
“We started on the pole, and I think Chase drew six or seven, somewhere around there,” Ore said. “He got up to us quickly, so it basically became a battle between me and him. I was leading, and he was running second, and we got together, went to the infield. We thought our night was over; thought our championship hopes were done.
“It was a cone race, so we had an opportunity to jump to the outside, if need be, to gain some position, so we jumped to the outside, got right back behind him… and was able to get back by him.”
Zack Ore (55) leads Chase Robertson during the 2024 season finale at Bowman Gray Stadium. (Photo: Erick Messer/Bowman Gray Stadium)
Ore finished the final race fifth, and Robertson finished sixth.
“Just enough to win the championship,” Ore added. “The relief as you cross the checkered flag or the finish line was like none other because of the stress leading up to it.”
The win delivered relief for Ore, and it did the same for the crew members who have been working with him for about seven years.
Getting to share a title with them made the celebration even more special for Ore.
“It means a lot,” he said. “These guys being with me when I wasn’t running as good, and then with me for the last few years that we competed for a championship, and now that we’ve actually got it done and we accomplished that goal, it feels so much better. I’m so happy for them, because they come in, put in a ton of work on the cars.
“Obviously they’re not paid crew members; they volunteer their time, time away from their family, which means a lot to me that they dedicate themselves throughout the summer from essentially March to the end of August, and then we raced some after that.
“So it’s awesome… I’m glad I can accomplish that and allow them to enjoy this with me.”
The team had a small celebration the night of the championship and will also hold a Christmas party, which has become an annual event, where they will continue to celebrate the hard work from this year.
A big season with two big championship wins calls for big celebrations.
“It’s definitely been an awesome season, and hopefully we can enjoy some more accomplishments in the future,” he added.
NASCAR officials announced penalties Tuesday to the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team for a detached wheel during last weekend’s Cup Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Austin Dillon drove the No. 3 Chevrolet to a 32nd-place finish in Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400. In the 81st lap of the 109-lap race, the left-front tire dislodged as Dillon rounded Turn 4, forcing the event’s fifth and final caution period. The loose wheel violated Sections 8.8.10.4.A & C in the NASCAR Rule Book, which concerns the “loss or separation of an improperly installed tire/wheel from the vehicle during the event.”
As a result, competition officials suspended RCR No. 3 crew members Joshua Thomas (front tire-changer) and Nick Covey (jack) for the next two Cup Series events — Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Oct. 27 event at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
NASCAR officials also fined four crew chiefs from the Xfinity Series after their cars were found with a single unsecured lug nut each in a post-race check Saturday at the Charlotte Roval. Each crew chief was fined $5,000 for the safety violations; the drivers for all four teams are still championship-eligible in the Xfinity Series Playoffs.
Teams with single-lug infractions (with their corresponding crew chiefs and drivers):
No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet (crew chief James Pohlman, driver Justin Allgaier)
No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet (crew chief Phillip Bell, driver Sammy Smith)
No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Andy Street, driver Austin Hill)
No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (crew chief Jeff Meendering, driver Chandler Smith)
Joey Logano was already back home after Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Roval elimination race Sunday evening, unwinding by playing foosball with a friend in his shop. Some tabletop soccer helped distract from the resignation that his championship eligibility in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs had evaporated.
That’s when Logano’s phone notifications started to build.
Those pings eventually let Logano in on the scuttlebutt that had been trickling out of post-race inspection. The Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet driven by Alex Bowman was found to be underweight. Bowman was disqualified and ruled out of the postseason picture; Logano was back into the playoff field, advancing with an 11th-hour reprieve.
Logano detailed what he termed a “wild roller coaster of emotions” after Sunday’s turn of events, shedding light on his renewed outlook during a Tuesday media availability with his quest for a third Cup Series title freshly restored. The 34-year-old veteran had mustered a valiant points-gathering day in Sunday’s Round of 12 finale but ended up nine points shy of advancing with the initial, unofficial results. When inspection ended, Logano was slotted back in as the eighth and final driver still alive on the postseason grid.
“I was starting to move forward,” Logano said, recounting the time between the checkered flag and the results being made official. “You get there literally the moment we get out of the race car. It takes a little bit to get your thoughts collected, and honestly, by the time I was driving home, my wife and I were talking about something far more important than what we were doing at the race track. My mind was already starting to shift on what were the next moves and kind of getting over the race. Then I started hearing the rumors from there, and the phone started to ring shortly after.”
Those rumors swirled around potential delays in the inspection process. “Usually, nothing happens,” Logano said about the conjecture, which he took with a grain of cautious optimism. But the questions and uncertainty started to gain momentum, and that snowball effect caught his attention.
“I was like, ‘Something’s up here,'” Logano told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio earlier Tuesday morning. “Hang on a second. Something’s going on. I need to figure it out because a lot of people are calling all at the same time.”
That optimism was rewarded, and it stuck Monday after Hendrick Motorsports elected not to appeal the penalty. Logano now heads to Sunday’s Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) with loftier goals beyond adding a fourth victory at the 1.5-mile Nevada oval. Logano said that playoff eligibility intact or not, his approach stays the same: “You go out there and you attack.”
Logano won the playoff-opening race at Atlanta Motor Speedway last month, and he led laps in three of the four races that followed, though his finishes did not produce a top-10 result in that stretch. He got back on course at the Charlotte Roval, finishing eighth and piling up 18 stage points in a 47-point total effort. That grit in a pressure-packed situation, combined with the speed in his No. 22 Ford, have been encouraging as Logano sets a target on reaching the championship stage in the Nov. 10 season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
“The stats may not look like it. It may look like we’re underdogs from the outset looking in, but internally we feel very confident in our race team that we can make a run at this thing and get ourselves into the Championship 4,” said Logano, who is 11 points below the provisional elimination line. “We’ve seen it in the past where you get in there and anything can happen at Phoenix. The goal right now is to look at the next three races and how do we maximize that. We can point our way in. We’re only 11 out, so it’s not a lot of points by no means. It can happen very quickly, so one race at a time. Right now, the focus is Vegas and we’ll try to maximize the day there.”
Two Team Penske drivers have reached the Round of 8, with Logano joining defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney among those drivers still vying for the Bill France Cup. Penske teammate Austin Cindric failed to advance from the Round of 12 group, despite a fourth-place finish at the Roval.
Logano (2022) and Blaney (2023) have won the last two Cup Series titles, and the blueprint for Team Penske’s success has been a performance uptick as the season draws to its close. It’s a plan that Logano hopes to replicate this year.
“Trends are trends for a reason, right?” Logano said. “I don’t know why or what that is, but it does seem like Team Penske does a good job rising to the occasion when it matters during the playoffs. I feel like that happened a little sooner this year. We started to make that turnaround a little bit quicker than last year, and still, last year, Blaney was able to win the championship. Yeah, I feel great about it because we’ve done this before. Like I said before, from the outside looking in, you look at it and say, ‘Well, they haven’t had as many top fives. They haven’t had as many top 10s. They haven’t been as competitive.’ Who cares? We’ve lived this story many times before. Yeah, would it be easier if you had more playoff points? Yeah, but you know what? You win this weekend, and you’re sitting as the favorite going into Phoenix, so it changes like that, and that’s with the playoff system that we have.
“Every point matters throughout the whole season. I’m not discounting that, but you have to be your absolute best at this point in the season or else those points don’t even matter, so I feel confident in our team that we’ve got that. We’re still alive. We’re still going and that’s the name of the game in these playoffs.”
After the race was postponed for two weeks due to Hurricane Helene’s impact on the Appalachain Mountains, North Wilkesboro Speedway is set to host the penultimate event of the 2024 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season.
Last year saw NASCAR’s oldest division visit North Wilkesboro for the first time in its long, prestigious history. A field of 38 cars showed up to take the green flag, with veteran Matt Hirschman bringing home the victory over the championship frontrunners in Ron Silk and Justin Bonsignore.
Just like 2023, Silk and Bonsignore enter Sunday’s Brushy Mountain Powersports 150 atop the Modified Tour standings, with the former holding the points lead. Despite this, Bonsignore has momentum on his side for North Wilkesboro after winning at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on Sunday.
A freshly repaved North Wilkesboro will present a plethora of challenges for Silk, Bonsignore and the rest of the Modified Tour field as they look to add their own successful chapter at one of the southeast’s most prestigious facilities.
Tickets to the Brushy Mountain Powersports 150 can be purchased here. Below is everything to know ahead of Sunday’s race, which starts at 2 p.m. ET and can be seen on FloRacing.
A victory at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park has Justin Bonsignore only five points back from Ron Silk in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour standings. (Photo: Kostas Lymperopoulos/NASCAR)
Brushy Mountain Powersports 150
Justin Bonsignore is all too familiar with how the penultimate race can decide the Modified Tour championship.
During last year’s visit to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, Bonsignore and Ron Silk never left each other’s sightlines until the final restart of the afternoon. A missed shift from Bonsignore from the front row knocked him to 13thin the final running order, giving Silk the buffer he needed to secure the title at Martinsville Speedway.
North Wilkesboro now fills Thompson’s role in the championship pursuit for 2024, but the stakes remain high for both title contenders. Bonsignore’s triumph at Thompson last week trimmed the deficit to just five points, but Silk still leads all Modified Tour competitors with four victories on the year.
Although Bonsignore and Silk have come together on numerous occasions, their battle for the victory last weekend was both aggressive and clean. Should the two get into a heated duel at North Wilkesboro on Sunday, Patrick Emerling remains within range of the championship despite now being 21 points behind Silk.
The complete entry list for the Brushy Mountain Powersports 150 will be released later this week.
North Wilkesboro Speedway could be a crucial turning point in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. (Photo: Eakin Howard/NASCAR)
Schedule: Sunday, October 20 … Final practice from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. ET … Qualifying at 1 p.m. ET … Brushy Mountain Powersports 150 at 2 p.m. ET.
Qualifying: Two consecutive qualifying laps. Faster lap determines qualifying position. Adjustments or repairs may not be made on the vehicle after the vehicle has taken the green flag at the start/finish line. NASCAR reserves the right to have more than one vehicle engage in qualifying runs at the same time. Starting field for the Brushy Mountain Powersports 150 is limited to 32 starters including Provisional Positions.
Tire allotment: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is twelve (12) tires per team. All tires used for qualifying and the race must be purchased at the track and scanned by Hoosier, unless otherwise approved in advance by the Series Director. Four (4) tires must be used for qualifying and to begin the race. All qualifying tires must remain in impound until released by NASCAR Officials. The remaining tire allotment may be used for practice and or/change tires during the event. The tire change rule is two (2) tires, per caution period.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Oct. 15, 2024) — Sam Hunt Racing announced that Andrew “Bubba” Pollard will make his second career NASCAR Xfinity Series start on Saturday, Nov. 2, competing in the National Debt Relief 250 at Martinsville Speedway. (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio). SANY America will serve as the primary partner aboard the No. 26 Toyota.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to race at Martinsville with SANY and SHR,” Pollard said. “I really enjoyed the experience racing at Richmond earlier this season. Thanks to SANY, I’m excited to be back in an Xfinity car and can’t wait to hit the track again.”
The 37-year-old Senoia, Georgia, native made his Xfinity Series debut earlier this season at Richmond Raceway where he finished sixth after starting at the tail of the field. Pollard has over 100 late model wins and has collected 15 championship trophies from various late model championships. Pollard, whose long-time racing car number has been No. 26, is one of the most decorated short-track racers of all time, and Sam Hunt Racing is excited to welcome him to the team.
“There’s nothing more fulfilling than going to the track with true racers, and Bubba is exactly that,” said Sam Hunt, owner of Sam Hunt Racing. “He’s not only a true racer, but a great person who respects and appreciates the effort and sacrifice that goes into each race. To have him drive for me, along with having a great partner in SANY — is a dream come true and something the entire organization is looking forward to. It’s going to be a really fun weekend in Martinsville.”
SANY America, headquartered in Peachtree City, Georgia, will be on board of the No. 26 Toyota at Martinsville. The partnership between Pollard and SANY America was a natural fit for the blue-collar driver as his family business and family-owned race track of Senoia Raceway utilize heavy equipment and machinery to complete daily tasks.
“Bubba is the right fit for SANY. He’s hands-on in every aspect of his business including his short track racing program right down the road from our Georgia headquarters where we manufacture heavy construction equipment,” said David Nicoll, chief executive officer of SANY America, Inc. “He has succeeded through hard work, grit, and determination just like SANY employees, dealers, and customers. We’re proud to have Bubba in the driver’s seat of the No. 26 SANY car and look forward to a great race in Martinsville.”
Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon said Tuesday that the organization accepted the disqualification penalty handed to its No. 48 Chevrolet team last weekend, explaining that the team did not file an appeal in part because no exonerating evidence was found in post-race inspection.
Gordon’s remarks came during Tuesday’s “Morning Drive” segment on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, after Kyle Larson’s clinching victory for Hendrick Motorsports in Sunday’s Charlotte Motor Speedway road course event. Larson reached the Round of 8 in the Cup Series Playoffs, with teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott joining him after Sunday’s elimination race. Fellow Hendrick driver Alex Bowman was also in position to advance in the postseason to make it a clean sweep for all four teams, but his No. 48 Chevy did not meet the minimum weight requirement in post-race inspection, resulting in a disqualification penalty.
Bowman was relegated to a last-place finish in the 38-car field, dropping him from the playoff field and opening the door for Team Penske’s Joey Logano to fill the eighth and final spot in the next round. Hendrick Motorsports faced a 5 p.m. ET deadline Monday to appeal the penalty but chose not to, apologizing to the team’s fans and partners and saying in a statement: “We simply did not give ourselves enough margin to meet the post-race requirement. Although unintentional, the infraction was avoidable.”
Gordon said the organization considered multiple factors in reaching that decision, including any possible damage from the No. 48 car’s significant curb hop on the frontstretch chicane early in the race.
“You just look at this race in general and the amount of contact, we wanted to really inspect the car fully to see was there enough damage or was there something that got dislodged from the car,” Gordon told SiriusXM. “So NASCAR was great through the whole process. You can’t really inspect much of it at the race track, so we weren’t really sure, but they took it over to the tech center, looked at it yesterday and thoroughly examined it and didn’t find anything. So quite honestly, it’s just one of those things where NASCAR has minimum pre-race, minimum post-race weights, and our teams in order to just make the best performing race cars every weekend for our drivers, we know that we’ve got to stay as close to those minimums as possible, and in this case, the 48 car, they just cut it too close and missed it, and so that’s on us.
“Pretty embarrassed by it and very disappointing after what was looking like a historical day and one of the most exciting days that we’ve had at the race track, being a home race and everything and celebrating in Victory Lane and all four, and that all got wiped away. So we looked at all the facts, and we didn’t feel like there was really anything that we felt comfortable appealing, and we’re going to move on.”
Gordon said he has met with Hendrick Motorsports competition executives Jeff Andrews and Chad Knaus, along with the teams’ car chiefs and crew chiefs, adding that “we’re going to assess and probably adjust our procedures and our processes” to ensure that inspection tolerances are met in the races ahead.
“Certainly looking back at this, it doesn’t seem like pushing it as far as we did or cutting it as close as we did there was worth it,” Gordon said. “But at the same time, I love that our race teams pay attention to all the details, and it’s in a thousand different areas on the car. So we’ll certainly take a look at that, and the most important thing is making sure that all four of our cars moving forward are going to be able to meet those tolerances.”
Bowman’s championship eligibility expired after the Charlotte Roval, with his playoff hopes dashed by a 20-point margin after Sunday evening’s penalty. But Gordon lauded what’s been a bounceback season for Bowman, who snapped an 80-race skid with his summertime victory in the Chicago Street Race and who returned to the playoffs after missing the field in 2023.
“There’s a multitude of factors that make this tough to swallow, but one of the keys is the performance of the 48 team and what Alex has done,” Gordon said. “That team’s had a lot of pressure on them. They’ve been building this team up, getting more depth, getting comfortable with one another. Alex being healthy this year, they go win at Chicago, get themselves in the playoffs, and performed at a high level through the playoffs. So you hate to take that momentum and that opportunity away, and I know they’re disappointed as well, and I also know that they’ve got points to gain and get as high up in the points as they can once you see what plays out in this next round. Those guys can go gain a lot of points and get high up and keep the momentum going and win races and take that into next season and hopefully get the season started off right.”
The rest of the Hendrick Motorsports group has aspirations for finishing strong and advancing to the Championship 4 finale at Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 10. Elliott has built on his consistency, Byron has rekindled some of his early season magic in recent weeks, and Larson added another in a series of dominating outings Sunday with his sixth win of the season.
Hendrick Motorsports has placed two cars among the final four championship contenders in two of the last three years at Phoenix, and Gordon said the organization was inching toward a well-timed peak in performance.
“That’s super-impressive, and that’s what you want,” Gordon said. “You want to get red-hot at this time of the year, and I think all of our teams, I can just tell they’ve got that twinkle in their eye, they’ve got an amazing opportunity to go battle for a championship, and this next round aligns really well for all three of the teams that we still have in the playoffs. Any one of them can not only … I’m hoping we get all three of them to Phoenix, but any one of them can win the championship this year.”
Rajah Caruth is now fully engulfed in his second full-time season in the Craftsman Truck Series and is currently competing in his first NASCAR Playoff appearance, eyeing a shot at making the Championship 4 to take home the coveted trophy at Phoenix Raceway when the series holds its finale on Friday, Nov. 8.
While Caruth has admittedly had an up-and-down year, the 22-year-old is still laser-focused on the tasks at hand and ensuring he is as prepared as possible when the time comes.
“It’s been an up-and-down year for sure, I think,” Caruth told NASCAR.com. “There have been a lot of solid times, but there have also been times where there are things that are left to be desired. I think what I’ve learned from the grind of the year so far is that truck racing isn’t as jam-packed as the Xfinity Series or the Cup Series, so I have just been trying to use my time wisely.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of fun and cool things off of the race track, but at the same time, just using my time wisely and being present at the race shop and with my team and kind of learning what it takes to be a contending driver on and off of the race track.”
Caruth will enter the Round of 8 playoff race at Homestead-Miami Speedway (Saturday, Oct. 26, Noon ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) just five points below the elimination line after a fourth-place finish at Talladega, his third top-10 finish in the last four races.
Confidence is high for the Washington, D.C. native, returning to a 1.5-mile race track. Earlier this year, a win at the 1.5-mile oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway propelled Caruth to a postseason position.
“I think Homestead is just a really fun race track,” Caruth said. “I’ve only raced there once, but I feel like it’s kinda right in my driving style. I feel really confident in my ability to run against the wall or be disciplined to a line but also, at the same time, be flexible to change where I need to be.
“I honestly think it is going to be business as usual, but you never know. It’s obviously playoff racing, so things can happen, but fortunately, we have had good and bad luck this year but really had some good luck at Talladega. Hopefully, we won’t need to rely on it and just take it to them when we get to Homestead.”
The calmness and level-headed mindset can be felt just by how Caruth speaks and conducts himself. He blocks out the noise of everything around him and stays focused on what he and his No. 71 Spire Motorsports team can control. He intends to maintain this mindset as he stares down the opportunity at his first championship in the Craftsman Truck Series.
“To be honest, I don’t really care what the external view of it is,” Caruth added. “I am more focused on my team and the things we need to do on the race track. Just be invested in each other work-wise and in our personal lives as well. Really, for me, I feel like, why not us? We have shown potential, we have put in the work, and we have put ourselves in a position to get really good finishes. There is no reason why we can’t be one of the four in Phoenix.
“For me, if and when we get there, I guess the rest is just gravy. The goal is to get there with a shot, so I am confident in our chances to do so in about a month from now.”
