The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Triple Truck Challenge incentive program returns for the 2026 season, with a trio of intriguing races making up this year’s event.
This hub page will provide you with everything you need to know about the program, including links and more for each race event. Continue to monitor this hub as results from each Triple Truck Challenge race are added.
Beginning in 2019, “The Trip” is a program that rewards drivers financially for performing well during a three-race stretch in each Truck Series season. Over that span, a $50,000 bonus is awarded to the winner of each race. Should a driver win multiple events, the bonus money increases. If a driver wins two out of three races, he or she will be awarded $150,000. If a driver wins all three Triple Truck Challenge races, $500,000 total is awarded.
Where will the Triple Truck Challenge take place this season?
“The Trip” begins its 2026 stretch on March 20 at Darlington Raceway. The second of the three Triple Truck Challenge races will be on April 3 at Rockingham Speedway. The 2026 Triple Truck Challenge finale will occur on April 10 at Bristol Motor Speedway. All three venues have hosted the program in prior years; Bristol and Rockingham made up two of the three races during the 2025 stretch, while Darlington hosted the event most recently in 2021.
Who qualifies for the Triple Truck Challenge?
In order to qualify for the Triple Truck Challenge, drivers must be declared to collect Craftsman Truck Series points.
A victory at Darlington Raceway seemed out of reach for Corey Heim, until a double overtime restart at least. The defending Truck Series champion restarted ninth and tracked down Ross Chastain in the final corner to win both the race and a $50,000 payday at the track “Too Tough To Tame.”
Twice is most definitely quite nice. Corey Heim dominated the day at ‘The Rock,’ leading 178 of 200 laps for his second consecutive Triple Truck Challenge win, upping his payday to $150,000. He did, however, need to fend off Tricon Garage teammate Kaden Honeycutt in the final laps as Heim battled late steering gremlins.
***
At Bristol Motor Speedway (April 10)
Note: A Triple Truck Challenge winner was not awarded because the race winner was not declared for series points. Cup Series driver Christopher Bell won the race for Halmar Friesen Racing, leading 63 laps.
The following feature appears on NASCAR’s Substack and is being shared in full on NASCAR.com this week. Subscribe to our Substack to read more of Zach Sturniolo’s work, Nate Ryan’s weekly column, NASCARCASM’s fake texts, chat live each week with writers Sturniolo and Cameron Richardson, and much more.
When “Malcolm in the Middle” last aired in 2006, lead actor Frankie Muniz was 20 years old, still very much in the hustle and bustle of Hollywood.
Twenty years later, the show is back with a four-episode reunion on Hulu and Disney+ — as evidenced by the sky-blue vinyl wrap donning the No. 33 Team Reaume Ford F-150 that Muniz drove in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday.
Muniz’s face was prominently featured on the rear corners of the race truck, surrounded by those of Bryan Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek and his familiar castmates that made the show a 2000s staple. But Muniz isn’t a kid actor anymore. He’s a grown man with a family, pouring his soul into being a full-time race-car driver in NASCAR’s national levels. It just so happens he’s now reliving part of his childhood back in the public eye of the mainstream.
“I never thought I’d experience it again,” Muniz told NASCAR.com Friday morning at Bristol. “But it’s been really awesome. Obviously, I’m also driving (Friday) in the ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ Ford F-150, which I don’t know that that’s ever happened before — like a driver promoting their TV show that’s coming out the same day. But I’m super-excited for both worlds colliding, and hopefully people love it.”
These days, Muniz is a full-time racer in the midst of his fourth full-time season in stock cars, a journey that has been mixed with glorious highs and heart-wrenching lows. Toss in filming a four-episode reunion in Vancouver while balancing racing, fatherhood, marriage … it all began to take its toll on Muniz.
“I always feel bad — the word’s not complaining, but explaining how just crazy busy I am because everyone’s busy,” Muniz said. “Life is busy in general. But being an actor, filming a show, promoting a show, that’s a full-time gig that most actors would be like, ‘Oh, I need a six-month vacation in Hawai’i.’ Because it’s just a lot. It’s really draining.
“But then mix in the fact that I’ve got to be prepared and ready to compete almost every single week in the Truck Series and traveling all over. … Since Feb. 1, I’ve only been home four days. I’ve already been on, I think, 80 flights this year. It’s been a lot. Sure, people are gonna go ‘first-world problems.’ I’m exhausted, I’m not gonna lie.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
What keeps him going is what pushed him back into racing in the first place: serving as an inspiration to his 5-year-old son, Mauz.
Muniz knows the great fortune he’s had to be so many things — a Hollywood star; a drummer in indie-rock band Kingsfoil; a real-life, full-fledged race-car driver. But when he held his son in his arms for the first time in 2021, he couldn’t help but wonder: “Who is he gonna grow up thinking that I am?”
Five years later, Muniz is back in the Hollywood limelight, rattling through press and premieres that featured an early-week gamut of appearances in New York City, where his face was featured on a 200-foot billboard in Times Square.
“I wanted him to understand work ethic and sacrifice and all those things, right?” Muniz said. “And I wanted him to understand why we had the things that we had, not just think that it’s normal. And so I decided to go racing to be an inspiration to him. In that same token, it has completely taken me away from him, realistically. So even that, I’m trying to balance in a sense.”
Muniz’s stay in the Craftsman Truck Series — the first rung in the three-level ladder of NASCAR’s national series — is no publicity stunt. Muniz first started racing in 2004, during the original stint of “Malcolm in the Middle” filming, with an appearance in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race in Long Beach. That jump-started a career that led him into open-wheel racing before a 2009 crash at Mid-Ohio sidelined him with a broken back and badly injured left thumb.
A full season of racing in the ARCA Menards Series in 2023 with one top five and 11 top 10s led to part-time opportunities in trucks and the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2024 before going full-time truck racing in 2025 with Team Reaume.
In 30 truck starts before Bristol, Muniz has one top 10 (10th, Michigan 2025) with an average finish of 25.6. Team Reaume is not a powerhouse team in the series, the way Toyota’s Tricon Garage or Ford’s ThorSport Racing is. Targets are always kept in check — “if we can consistently be in the top 20, that’s a good goal” — and Muniz loves the challenge, no matter the struggles that come with it.
“It is so hard,” Muniz said. “The competition I think in the Truck Series is insane this year. ARCA, I dove in after not racing for 12, 13 years. I was an open-wheel guy and then wanted to go stock-car racing. I jumped into ARCA (and) immediately had success, and it felt really, really good. So obviously, made the jump up to the Truck Series and it’s a whole different level, right?
“When you look at the entry list even this weekend at Bristol, like, how am I even out there? Like, there’s I think seven Cup drivers (in the field). Everybody in the Truck Series is really, really good. At first, I was playing catch-up for the lack of experience. Now, I have a lot of experience, but it’s trying to figure out what works for me, what works for the team.”
There are rejuvenating highs in racing, though. Muniz ventured back into sports-car racing on March 27, driving for Ford in the Pirelli GT4 America Amateur class at Sonoma Raceway. In his first appearance at the famed California road course, Muniz and co-driver Tyler Stone walked away with a second-place podium class finish, a tangible result for his unrelenting efforts.
The objective nature of sports is that results do that talking — not critics.
“It’s not subjective, right?” Muniz said. “You know, the ‘Malcolm’ show came out (Friday). I’m reading reviews. Half of them think it’s the greatest show ever, and half of them think we shouldn’t have done it. But it’s subjective. Where in racing, we were on the podium. It’s because we beat everybody. …
“That’s why I like racing, right? The highs and lows and the feelings and the emotion. And a lot of is because you just care a lot, right? If I didn’t care what, like, ‘yeah, whatever, I had a bad day.’ No. Like I want — for the team, for me — to do well. But I don’t expect it to be handed to me. So I know there’s a lot of work that goes into it, and I’m trying to do it.”
So 20 years later, long after Muniz had originally hung up the moniker of Malcolm, he’s back. He was even put in the middle of the action Friday night on the high banks of Bristol. And with the race wrapped up, folks can go from watching him race to watching him reprise his role as Malcolm on “Malcolm in the Middle” with four new episodes on Hulu and Disney+.
But no matter the oversized billboards or the fun promos you get to see him star in, Muniz is all in on racing.
“I just want everyone to know that I take this so seriously,” Muniz said. “I’m not here as a fluke or just to have fun. I’m here because I want to compete. I’m here to hopefully eventually get to where I’m competing for top 10s, top fives, maybe wins. I know I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna keep fighting for it.”
Editor’s Note: Keep tabs on this page for lineup advice following qualifying, including changes you should consider.
Fantasy Update: Drivers had their hands full during practice and qualifying for the Food City 500, leading to a jumbled starting grid at Bristol Motor Speedway. Ryan Blaney appeared to have the best car over the long haul, topping the scoring pylon on 15-, 20-, 25- and 30-lap averages. I’ve only got six uses remaining with both Blaney and Denny Hamlin over the course of the regular season, and am leaning in the direction of the No. 12 car banking more points on Sunday. The only other adjustment is dropping Chase Elliott, who ranked 28th on 10-lap averages in practice, with Carson Hocevar.
My lineup: Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell. Garage: Carson Hocevar.
__
With a pair of unforgettable, extreme tire-wear races over the last two seasons, Goodyear will debut a new tire compound this Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It’s important to note because some of the heavy favorites have struggled under those conditions. This weekend could be a return to normalcy, where the drivers who rip it around the “World Fastest Half-Mile” become mainstays at the front once more.
Returning to Fastlane this year is my weekly NASCAR 36 for 36 pick, where you can come play along. It’s a season-long points battle introduced in 2024 where strategy is the primary emphasis. With 36 chartered cars and 36 races on the 2026 schedule, players can choose each car once for the duration of the season.
Driver:Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Selections remaining: 8 Comment: Since joining Hendrick, Larson has been virtually untouchable at Bristol. Before a wreck there in the fall, he had six consecutive top-five finishes to start his tenure with Hendrick, including a trio of victories. In the last two non-tire-wear races, he led 873 of 1,000 laps.
Driver:Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Selections remaining: 6 Comment: Hamlin has been the only driver who has challenged Larson consistently at Bristol over the last several seasons. He is a four-time winner here, including two of the last five races. The No. 11 team has placed inside the top 10 in six of the last seven trips at “The Last Great Colosseum.”
Driver:Christopher Bell, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Selections remaining: 7 Comment: Bell enters this weekend as the most recent Bristol winner. In nine career Cup starts there, he has a quartet of top fives, with a grand total of seven top 10s. He is the only driver to crack the top 10 in all six Next Gen events at the Tennessee short track.
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
DRIVERS TO AVOID
Driver:Tyler Reddick, No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota Selections remaining: 8 Comment: Admittedly, Reddick’s most glaring flaw since moving to the Cup Series has been short tracks. Bristol fits that bill, with a lone top 10 in nine tries and an average finish of 19.4. In five Bristol starts with 23XI Racing, he hasn’t placed better than 15th.
Driver:Joey Logano, No. 22 Team Penske Ford Selections remaining: 7 Comment: Knowing full well how successful Penske has been at short tracks recently, this could look like a boneheaded decision in retrospect. After all, Logano rounded out the top five at Bristol last fall and has a pair of wins on his resume. However, that fifth-place finish is Logano’s lone bright spot in six Next Gen races here as the No. 22 car has five finishes of 22nd or worse during that span.
David Jensen | Getty Images
SLEEPERS OF THE WEEK
Driver:Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Selections remaining: 10 Comment: Gibbs is on a career heater entering Bristol, earning five straight top-10 finishes, matching the longest streak of his career. Bristol has been his best track since jumping to Cup, earning a pair of top-five finishes and four top-10 finishes in six starts. The 440 laps that he’s paced the field for are his most of any track, netting a 12.8 average finish.
Driver:Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Selections remaining: 9 Comment: Ever since Hocevar first turned laps in a Cup car at Bristol with Legacy Motor Club in 2023, he’s run toward the front. He has three finishes of 11th or better in five starts, including a personal best of seventh in the most recent outing.
Jacob Kupferman | Getty Images
FEATURED MATCHUPS
Chase Elliott vs. Brad Keselowski Pick: Elliott Comment: While Elliott has never hoisted one of the coveted Bristol swords in Victory Lane, he has five top-five and nine top-10 finishes in 17 starts, leading 444 laps. Keselowski has just two more top 10s than Elliott (11) in 12 additional starts (29). Elliott also brings added confidence, having won the most recent short-track race at Martinsville Speedway.
Denny Hamlin vs. Kyle Larson Pick: Larson Comment: This heavyweight battle could go either direction, but the recent numbers back Larson. Both drivers have won two races in the Next Gen car at Bristol, but Larson spends a significant amount of time at the front, having led 1,762 laps in only 19 career starts.
Ty Gibbs vs. Chase Briscoe Pick: Gibbs Comment: Briscoe enters this weekend on a streak of three consecutive top 10s at Bristol, finishing fourth in this event last spring. His 12.6 average finish here is a personal best among all circuits on the schedule. But Gibbs is the pick because of his consistent success on the track and the No. 19 team’s tendency to beat itself through the opening two months of the 2026 campaign.
Carson Hocevar vs. Josh Berry Pick: Hocevar Comment: Berry had an impressive showing at Martinsville, leaping seven spots in the driver standings. And while he’s a short-track enthusiast, his Bristol numbers aren’t staggering, with a best finish of 12th. Hocevar tends to stay out of trouble at Bristol, and the raw speed of the No. 77 car is impressive.
MY LINEUP
Starting five: Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs, Chase Elliott. Garage pick: Chase Briscoe.
36 FOR 36
Pick: Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Comment: At this point, it seems like a matter of time before Gibbs scores that elusive first Cup victory, and it’s entirely possible Bristol is where he gets it accomplished. He enters his best venue with momentum thanks to five consecutive finishes of sixth or better, jumping to sixth in the standings. In September, Gibbs led a career-high 201 laps and has hit the century mark in three of his six Bristol attempts.
This year, Heim is driving part-time for Tricon Garage, and he has the chance to do something unprecedented in Friday night’s Tennessee Army National Guard 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
In the first of three Triple Truck Challenge races March 20 at Darlington, Heim pulled off a dramatic win in the No. 5 Tricon Garage Toyota, collecting $50,000. Two weeks later, he triumphed in the No. 1 Tricon Tundra at Rockingham to up his bonus to $150,000 in the second race of “The Trip.”
Should he become the first driver to win all three races of a Triple Truck Challenge, Heim would collect a total of $500,000 for his efforts.
“I don’t really think about it in the truck, but being able to reflect on it, it would be cool to be the first person to sweep all three if we are able to do it,” Heim said after the Rockingham win.
“There is a lot of motivation for these guys in the No. 1 camp with Celsius as our primary (sponsor at Bristol), so super excited about that.”
Heim won at Bristol in 2023 and has finished second, third and third in his last three starts there.
Foremost among Heim’s competition for the Triple Truck Challenge bonus are Front Row Motorsports teammates Layne Riggs and Chandler Smith, both two-time winners at Thunder Valley (with Riggs winning two of the last three races there).
The field also features a handful of NASCAR Cup Series regulars, including five-time Truck Series winner Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, Carson Hocevar and Daniel Suárez. The Cup drivers are not eligible for the Triple Truck Challenge bonus money.
Stewart Friesen remembers everything about July 28, 2025.
It would’ve been easy for the veteran driver to walk away. But that thought never crossed his mind.
Racing in the Super DIRTcar Series — as he often does, along with his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series duties — Friesen suffered major injuries in a crash during an event at Autodrome Drummond in Quebec, Canada. His No. 44 car jumped the cushion on the 3/8-mile track and hit the end of the Turn 3 wall, with Friesen calling it a “blunt abutment.” He pirouetted through the night sky in a ball of fire before landing, when he was then struck by an oncoming race car at full speed.
Friesen was extricated from his car and rushed to a local hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a plethora of injuries, including a broken pelvis and three separate fractures in his right leg. He was later transferred to a larger hospital in New York for surgery and recovery.
Friesen spent several days in medical facilities before returning home, where heavy rehabilitation awaited. He rested for several weeks before starting physical therapy to rebuild significant muscle loss in his legs. Once winter arrived, he ramped up his training with the intention of returning to race action by Speedweeks.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Friesen told NASCAR.com ahead of Friday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “Definitely more comfortable in the race car than I am out of it walking around and stuff. Still fighting some nerve damage in my ankle — that’s been a little bit of a challenge. But overall, it’s going good. We’re back rocking and rolling.”
While Friesen nursed his injuries, his Truck Series team still had plenty to fight for last season. As a result of Friesen’s win at Michigan International Speedway last June, the Halmar-Friesen Racing No. 52 team was locked into the Truck Series Playoffs on the owner side. HFR tapped Christopher Bell to pilot the truck at Watkins Glen International before Kaden Honeycutt joined the program for the final eight races.
Friesen watched from afar, rooting for both his team and Honeycutt as they made the Championship 4 in both driver and owner points. Honeycutt earned five top 10s during his stint, including a pair of top-three finishes in the final two races.
“We had the win at Michigan and ran really good at IRP, and then I got hurt the next week. So I felt like the team was on an upward trajectory at that point and best it’s ever been,” Friesen said. “Chris (Larsen, team co-owner) and everybody at Halmar were like, yep, no, we want to keep the team going, and we were able to put Kaden in the truck, and he did a great job and kept the momentum going. That definitely translated into a strong end of the year for HFR and being in the final four, and then some good momentum through the off-season.”
In January, less than six months after the crash, the 42-year-old tested his big block modified at Friendship Motor Speedway in Elkin, North Carolina. He was cleared to return to racing.
And it didn’t take him very long to return to Victory Lane, either.
Friesen raced three events at All-Tech Raceway in Florida before heading to Volusia Speedway Park for the Super DIRTcar Series opener. On February 11, just 198 days after his injury, Friesen returned to glory.
“That was really, really big to get a win, get back in Victory Lane and just get those juices flowing for everybody,” Friesen said. “It’s been a busy start to the season. We’ve had some good speed, and it’s been kind of back to our crazy normal.
“[I have] a deeper appreciation for being able to do this, being able to make a living in motorsports. Getting back to the track with Jess (Friesen, his wife) racing at Fonda in September, it was like OK, not being at the race track for almost a whole month, and then being able to get to the track and just watch her and help her out just kind of re-ignited that fire that, damn, I really love this stuff and this is what we want to do. I’m just lucky to have a lot of partners that stuck with me, and teammates that helped make the transition back smooth.”
David Jensen | Getty Images
Through five races on the Truck Series side, it’s been so far, so good for Friesen heading into Friday’s race at Bristol. He sits ninth in points with a pair of top 10s, highlighted by a fourth-place finish last weekend at Rockingham Speedway.
His early numbers, though, aren’t fully indicative of the speed the No. 52 Toyota has shown. Friesen led 10 laps and won a stage at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta, and for most of that race, he seemed poised to take down Kyle Busch in what could’ve been Round 2 between the drivers after last year’s photo finish. But a late mechanical failure relegated him to 20th. Contending for at least a top 10 at Darlington Raceway three weeks ago, Friesen suffered damage in an overtime restart and finished 25th.
Otherwise, he could be much higher in the Truck Series totals.
“We’ve had really fast trucks, probably the best trucks we’ve had in years,” Friesen said. “That’s thanks to all our guys and our association with Toyota; it’s been awesome to see that, see the growth of the team and the speed come out of that.
“[Rockingham was] definitely a lot of relief. Big shot in the arm for the team and a big momentum builder. Having the speed but not the finishes is frustrating at times, so to be able to get the finish out of it was — have the bounce go the right way there with staying out in that long run and not losing a lap trying to do a green flag stop. So it kind of worked out in our favor, and we were able to capitalize there.”
After Bristol, it’s a three-week hiatus for the Truck Series before a stretch of seven races in eight weeks, spanning both coasts and including a pair of road courses. The other five races are intermediate-style tracks, a burst that, once completed, will mark just five regular-season races remaining.
The season is still quite young, but The Chase is already top of mind for the Canadian-turned-New Yorker.
“I got to do a better job of qualifying, to try to get some stage points per second stage,” Friesen said. “But trying to seed ourselves a little bit better so we’re not playing catch-up for most of the races is kind of what we’ve been doing. We’ve had race speed, but the qualifying hasn’t been great the last two weeks. So as we go through that stretch, just try to be consistent, qualify well and make as much points as we can.”
As Friesen forges ahead through salvation, one thing’s clear: He isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. The veteran said he’s re-watched his brutal crash, but that won’t deter him from racing and embarking on another loaded schedule across both the dirt and NASCAR realms.
To a much smaller scale, Friesen is like a modern-day version of The Beatles. When he shows up at a dirt track in the Northeast, no matter the venue, the fans will follow. They swarm him for autographs in the pits. They pile into the grandstands, whether it’s a 35-degree day in April or a 95-degree day in August.
Friesen is just as hungry as ever and isn’t lifting off both the literal and figurative throttle.
“It’s going to be kind of more of the same as years past,” Friesen said. “Focus on the midweek Super DIRTcar Series and Short Track Super Series races throughout the month of May, June, July, just hit as many of those as I can in the off weeks. And yeah, kind of business as usual. Try to stay racing as much as I can and keep myself in good shape.”
Rajah Caruth is living a double life in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Some weeks, he’s the driver of the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, heading to its shop in Mooresville, North Carolina, to prepare for a race weekend with engines from Hendrick Motorsports and sponsorship from HendrickCars.com. Others, he’s the driver of the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet, heading to its shop in Statesville, North Carolina — 25 minutes north of JRM — to prepare for a race weekend with Earnhardt-Childress Racing engines and sponsorship from other partners.
But no matter what day it is, what team he’s driving for, or how far his commute is to Chevrolet’s GM Charlotte Technical Center, he’s a driver fighting for stability in search of stock-car racing’s highest levels.
“It presents difficulties in the week-to-week logistics whenever I go back and forth, and obviously knowing the differences of the cars,” Caruth said of his dual rides in a Tuesday teleconference. “But honestly, at the race track, it’s not too complicated. I try to get each car driving to where I feel like I need it to go fastest, and we see where we stack up.”
This week, Caruth will be back in the No. 32 Chevrolet. Through eight races, the 23-year-old sits 10th in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series points standings after running five races for JR Motorsports and three for Jordan Anderson Racing. The back-and-forth nature of his current situation is taxing. He is chasing a championship by running the full season, but the unsteadiness of his circumstances isn’t confined to logistics. Caruth is also managing different personnel and different equipment on any given week.
There may not be many short-term benefits to the split duties he’s balancing, aside from a guaranteed full season of competition. But for Caruth, it’s all about the future.
“I feel like at the end of day, my goal is to race on Sundays, and I obviously can’t lose sight of where I’m at now, right? Because that impacts how or if I get to that level,” Caruth said. “But yeah, I think it’s the road less traveled. It’s not the easiest, and it wasn’t by design by any means. You’ve got to take what you get and what you’re able to make the most of. But I feel like the strengths and lessons I’ll receive will definitely benefit me long term in terms of going from running in the top five to fighting for a top 20, right? I think the race-craft that I’ve learned through that in my years, not only in the O’Reilly Series, but truck racing will just help for hopefully when I have the chance to race on Sundays in the future.
“I think that versatility, that race-craft is going to be important to know. And I feel like kind of getting a balance of both worlds is something that’s going to help me in the long run. So obviously got to be successful and get wins at this level and be competitive, but I really hope that in the long run, it will benefit me, because obviously it’s not the easiest right now, but I’d much rather take the path that I’m on now than having the best rides for my whole career and kind of having it easy to a certain point.”
Getty Images
With JRM, Caruth has one top five and three top 10s. With JAR, Caruth has one top 10. A Class of 2024 graduate of Winston-Salem State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Motorsports Management, Caruth dubs himself a tough critic and grades himself just a C-plus or B-minus through the early run of the schedule.
“I think there’s definitely been some highlights, but then there’s also been more left to be desired, whether it’s been in my control or out of my control, and opportunities left on the table,” Caruth said. “I’ve learned a lot. I’ve had a lot of fun this year for sure, but yeah, definitely some ups and downs.”
One of those highs was a daring late-race move for JRM last Saturday at Rockingham Speedway that vaulted Caruth to a career-best fourth-place finish, qualifying him for a shot at the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Another was an eighth-place finish in the No. 32 Chevy at Phoenix Raceway last month.
His most public down, though, came at Martinsville Speedway when he initiated contact late with Jesse Love while both were racing inside the top 10. Neither finished inside the top 10, and Caruth spun on the final lap, falling to 25th. Caruth also points to his eighth-place run at EchoPark Speedway in the second race of the campaign as another missed opportunity in a season when points are more critical than ever.
“I made one move that was pretty low percentage — and I didn’t crash or anything,” Caruth said. “But I put myself in a spot where I made it to where I had to fight back to get a top 10 versus if I just waited for the next corner or didn’t put myself in that spot, that goes from eighth to fighting for the win. Same thing with Martinsville last week, right? Like just having a big picture kind of mentality of, ‘I need to live to the next corner.’ I’ve had a couple of moments like that this year where there’s points on the table that I probably gave away, where if I didn’t have those, if I didn’t make those decisions or have those emotional reactions, then that positively impacts my finishing position.”
It’s hard to fault Caruth for overstepping that aggression. Though only 23, Caruth has been on a path toward seeking NASCAR Cup Series glory for nearly a decade, a path forged through sim racing that led to real opportunities and required unrivaled determination. But there are no guarantees for what’s next. He has now. That’s all he knows.
“There’s no other shot. Like, this is it for me,” Caruth said. “For this year, this is my shot. There’s not a next-year contract. I don’t have a Sunday ride waiting for me. There’s nothing waiting for me. This is it for this year, so I’ve got to race like my life depends on it and do my best. And whatever the season looks like when we get to November, I’ll be proud of it because I did my best.”
Alex Bowman has been medically cleared to return to NASCAR Cup Series competition at Bristol Motor Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports announced Thursday morning.
Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, missed the past four races with vertigo, stepping out of his car during the March 1 race at Circuit of The Americas when symptoms arose.
Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will mark Bowman’s first race since symptoms began.
“I’m grateful for the support I’ve had from Hendrick Motorsports, my sponsor Ally, our fans and the medical team throughout this process,” Bowman said in a team release. “It’s been tough being out of the car, but we all wanted to make sure I was 100% ready before returning. I feel really good, and I’m excited about being at the track with my team and getting back to racing.”
In a release, Hendrick Motorsports said Bowman turned laps Tuesday in a street car at the Ten Tenths Motor Club road course in Concord, North Carolina, then participated in a Wednesday pit practice in addition to simulator testing. Bowman then underwent a medical evaluation before being formally cleared for competition without restrictions.
“We’re proud of Alex and the way he’s handled this situation,” Jeff Andrews, president and general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, said in a release. “He’s put a lot of work into his recovery and followed the medical team’s plan every step of the way. From the outset, our goal was to prioritize his health and have him return when he was fully recovered and medically cleared. We’re looking forward to seeing Alex back in his race car this weekend.”
Myatt Snider stepped into the No. 48 Chevrolet to complete the race at COTA when Bowman exited the vehicle at Lap 71. Anthony Alfredo, a simulation driver for Hendrick Motorsports, drove the No. 48 car in Bowman’s absence at Phoenix Raceway while Justin Allgaier, the 2024 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion, substituted at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Darlington Raceway and Martinsville Speedway.
Bowman, an eight-time winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, is in his ninth season with the Rick Hendrick-owned team. He returns to action sitting 36th in the Cup standings with a best finish of 23rd (EchoPark Speedway) in three starts this year.
Ever since he won his first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race on Feb. 20, 2021 at the Daytona Road Course — as an 18-year-old making his first career start at any level of NASCAR national series — Ty Gibbs has been on everyone’s radar as a future winner at the Cup level.
At the time (before Connor Zilisch came along), Gibbs was the third-youngest O’Reilly Series winner in history, trailing only future champions Joey Logano and Chase Elliott. And nobody had ever won with zero national-series experience before. Gibbs went on to win three more races in a part-time schedule that season, then added seven more checkered flags en route to a dramatic 2022 O’Reilly championship win over Noah Gragson, clinched just weeks after his 20th birthday.
All of which is to say that Ty Gibbs knows how to win races against tough competition. So it has long seemed to be a matter of when the No. 54 JGR Toyota would drive to Victory Lane in the Cup Series, not if. But what seemed like a foregone conclusion has proven to take longer than we might have expected: Gibbs is now 130 starts into his Cup career, and the best showings he has put together have been a pair of runner-up finishes in 2024 at Darlington and in 2025 in the Chicago Street Race.
Should this worry Gibbs? The eventual list of winningest modern-era drivers who took at least 130 races to claim their first win is surprisingly sparse: Among that group, only the great Ricky Rudd — who took 161 career races before reaching Victory Lane — even won more than 10 times in his career. Go a bit longer than that, and it was considered remarkable that guys like Sterling Marlin (no wins until his 279th start) or especially Michael Waltrip (0-for-462 before winning in 2001 at Daytona on that fateful day) managed to even win the handful of races that they did after coming up short so many times at first.
Gibbs isn’t quite at that point yet. He’s still only 23 years old; Rudd, Kyle Petty and Alex Bowman all won their first races at age 26 and Austin Dillon was 27 when he broke through, to say nothing of Marlin (37) and Waltrip (38). Sometimes, getting an early head start on your career can help you earn experience without burning too many of your prime-aged years.
And the other encouraging factor for that long-awaited Gibbs win? He’s been driving extremely well so far this season, even if he doesn’t have the trophy to prove it — though that may be coming next, very soon.
With an average Driver Rating of 88.6 through seven races, Gibbs is tracking for both his best career single-season mark — surpassing his 81.4 average from 2024 — and his best ranking among Cup regulars. (At No. 8 in the series, he currently sits above Bubba Wallace, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski and Ross Chastain.) Moreover, Gibbs has improved almost across the board so far this year. Here’s a comparison of his ratings in each race of the 2026 season versus his previous career averages at the same tracks: Aside from a tough day at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, which saw him get caught up in traffic with Josh Berry and crash out of the race — finishing 37th with a 38.4 rating — Gibbs has beaten his previous career norms at every other track on this year’s schedule. That’s been especially true over the past five races, when he’s posted a Driver Rating of 89.2 or higher every race, including three in triple-digits (a threshold he broke only six times all of last year in more than five times as many races).
One final stat on Gibbs’ 2026 form to really underscore his improvement: After producing a cumulative head-to-head record of 119-220 (.351 winning percentage) against his JGR teammates over his first four seasons in Cup, Gibbs has gone 13-8 (.619) against teammates this season. Only four other drivers — AJ Allmendinger, Erik Jones, Chase Elliott and Shane van Gisbergen — have shown more improvement in record relative to teammates in 2026 versus 2025.
But while steady improvement is great — and a No. 6 ranking in the standings has Gibbs in excellent early position to make The Chase — we still have to ask: When will that maiden win finally happen?
Well, it could happen this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. Among active drivers, Gibbs is tied with Elliott for fourth-best with a 12.8 career average finish; after a 35th-place run in his Cup Series Bristol debut in 2022, he recorded a top 10 in four of his next five starts here (and counting), finishing no worse than 15th in that span. Also, in the Next Gen Car era (since 2022), only Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin have a better average Driver Rating at Bristol than Gibbs’ 98.3 mark: Beyond that, Gibbs also had a top-10 average Driver Rating (91.5) in the Next Gen era at Dover, back when it was a points-paying race track — which is relevant because Dover is the only other track that’s even vaguely comparable to Bristol on the schedule. Gibbs simply has a knack when it comes to these steep concrete tracks, and they probably offer him his best chance to claim that first career victory. That may particularly be the case when we consider that this is all pre-2026 data, predating his overall improvement as a driver so far this season.
In other words, all the ingredients seem to be finally lining up for Gibbs, and when that’s the case, the breakthrough usually isn’t far behind. For years, his first Cup win has felt like just a matter of time. Now — with the way he’s been driving, and with Bristol coming up — that time might finally be here.
In his second season with the team’s NASCAR Cup Series program, Smith has a pair of top 10s and has vaulted as high as fourth in the standings after leading 10 laps in the season-opening Daytona 500. Crashes have hindered the No. 38 Ford’s finishing position at times, including the last race at Martinsville, where a potential top 15 turned into 34th after suffering damage in the giant Lap 324 melee. He enters Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) 22nd in the series ranks.
Overall, Smith believes FRM has become more of a premier Ford organization while still outpunching its weight class, with far fewer resources and manpower than some of the other top Cup squads.
“We’re like a Ford A-team. That’s been a big step in the right direction,” Smith said in a media availability on Wednesday. “I still feel like we aren’t quite there, nearly comparing to like the top teams, but those top teams didn’t get there overnight.
“But from comparing last year to this year, I really like where we’re at. I feel like we’ve taken that next step and are a lot stronger in a lot of areas. Our whole weekend seems to be going smoother and just better from a performance standpoint, and I feel like that next step for us is just trying to find ourselves in the top 10 every week. That’s a big step.”
Smith rejoined FRM in 2025 after spending his rookie Cup Series season with Spire Motorsports, briefly driving for the organization as a Trackhouse Racing development driver. The 26-year-old from Huntington Beach, California, previously drove two seasons in Front Row’s Truck Series operation, culminating with a title in 2022.
So while his familiarity with the Bob Jenkins-owned team is certainly crucial, his career adversity is, too. Smith lost his Truck Series ride with GMS Racing after 2021, despite finishing second in points. Combined with his short time at Trackhouse and Spire, he explained that he’s learned to enjoy the small wins and be willing to alter his expectations.
And in an era of stage racing and constantly swimming upstream as an underdog, that perspective means everything.
“You got to take your little wins, which are big wins when you can, and it’s really hard to change your mindset with that,” Smith said. “[I] came up winning in the lower ranks, and it becomes the normal. And you know, you go into a weekend – even if it’s not a great track for you — you still might win a stage and get a lot of stage points, and have a shot to win the race, and then you get on the plane and you’re happy at the weekend, but you’re not excited or just amped.
“What feels really good at this level, but at the same time really frustrating, is when you do damn near everything right in a weekend and you run 12th. You got to dive deep and dig deep to see where you can improve on and move the needle, but that’s just Cup racing.
“I feel like nowadays, if you could get some good stage points or have a shot at a stage win or at the end of these things, it’s crazy how they play out. You could be completely out of it for 90% of the race, and then strategy and weird, timely cautions fall, you find yourself in the first couple rows and you have a shot to win the Cup race. I feel like that’s what really just fuels you up for the next one, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be in that position a few times.”
And one of those times came when the Cup Series last visited Bristol. In a race filled with attrition, tire management, and pure chaos, Smith took what he called “at best, a mid-pack car” and took it all the way to the front. He fired off second on a restart with four laps to go, but Christopher Bell ultimately powered past him and Carson Hocevar, relegating the Ford driver to third in the final running order.
Like most drivers, Smith isn’t sure if the same type of Bristol race is in store this Sunday. But with expected temperatures close to 80 degrees and another new tire from Goodyear on the way, anything is possible — and he’s ready for it.
“I’m good with whatever,” he said of the changes. “I’m a big believer of if you put yourself in contention enough, one will go your way. Once you get that first one out of the way, they sure do come easier.”
The NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will race at the iconic Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. Below are the qualifying orders for all three series.
Among that group, only the great Ricky Rudd — who took 161 career races before reaching Victory Lane — even won more than 10 times in his career. Go a bit longer than that, and it was considered remarkable that guys like Sterling Marlin (no wins until his 279th start) or especially Michael Waltrip (0-for-462 before 
Aside from a tough day at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, which saw him 
Beyond that, Gibbs also had a top-10 average Driver Rating (91.5) in the Next Gen era at Dover, back when it was a points-paying race track — which is relevant because Dover is the 
