CHANDLER SMITH RACING PHOTO
Talking Rock, Georgia’s Chandler Smith, nick-named by his Georgia fans, the Talking Rocket, won his first race of the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
NASCAR Wire Reports – After charging into the lead in Friday night’s Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Chandler Smith’s work was far from over.
The driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford then had to hold off NASCAR Cup Series moonlighter Kyle Larson over a seven-lap dash to the finish to claim his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory of the season, his second at the 0.533-mile short track and the sixth of his career.
Smith also won the $50,000 Triple Truck Challenge bonus that goes to the highest-finishing Craftsman Truck Series regular.
Smith’s victory by 0.934 seconds over Larson ended the latter’s quest for a weekend sweep of NASCAR’s three national series races. Even though Larson had 27-lap fresher tires than the race winner for a restart on Lap 244 of 250, he could do no better than second.
“I’m more excited for the team than I am for myself,” said Smith, whose tenure in the No. 38 F-150 came in an 11th-hour deal at season’s end. “This group came together-we hired my crew chief (Jon Leonard) two weeks before Daytona … My life’s been really, really crazy recently, and there were a lot of unknowns about my future going into the season, and we kind of had our backs against the wall putting this group together. I wouldn’t want any different of a group than I had behind me.”
Smith grabbed the lead from eventual third-place finisher Corey Heim just before a caution flag flew on Lap 237 for Andres Perez’s spin on the backstretch. That gave Smith control of the race for the final restart, and he promptly asserted himself from the top lane.
After overcoming a tight handling condition in the second stage and a pit road speeding penalty at the stage break, Larson took the green flag behind Smith on Lap 243 and quickly passed Heim for second, but the driver of the No. 07 Spire Motorsports couldn’t catch Smith, despite trying different lines around the concrete oval.
“We fell back on that long run in the second stage – got super tight,” said Larson, who pitted on Lap 162 for fresh rubber after putting 27 laps on the tires he got on Lap 135 during the stage break. “Then I sped on pit road, but on that next stop, I think that probably helped us…
“We had a little bit of an advantage to get toward the front. I thought it would be more of an advantage than it was. But still, I think it was a benefit to our race… Still, to get to second is good.”
The second-place finish was not good enough to keep Larson’s hope of the weekend sweep alive, however, he’ll have two more chances at victory this weekend with Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race and Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.
Tyler Ankrum ran fourth, followed by Ben Rhodes. Bayley Currey picked up the first stage win of his career in Stage 2 before falling out with transmission trouble 13 laps from the finish.
Smith led twice for a race-high 127 laps, followed by Rajah Caruth, who was out front for 85 circuits on a contrary tire strategy.
Reigning series champion Ty Majeski was eliminated in a Lap 53 crash involving Frankie Muniz, Stewart Friesen and Brandon Jones.
Chandler Smith’s fellow Georgian, Corey Heim from Marietta, leads Smith by 18 points in the series standings, with Majeski 57 points back in third.
The Craftsman Truck Series returns next week (Fri., 5 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with its first visit to Rockingham Speedway in 12 years.