Time for the Trucks to get Tricky

The NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series is back in action this weekend at Pocono Raceway for the Pocono 150 to benefit Farm Aid this Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET (on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The series was off last weekend as the other two national series took to Talladega Superspeedway. This weekend’s race will mark the sixth of the season for the Gander Trucks.

Grant Enfinger is the only fulltime Gander Trucks driver to have won a race so far along with NASCAR Cup Series regulars Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott. This means that there’s only one 2020 Playoff position taken currently on wins.

Kyle Busch is the only driver to have won twice at Pocono (2015, 2018) and Ross Chastain is the most recent winner (2019).

The inaugural Gander Trucks race at Pocono was on July 31, 2010 and Elliott Sadler took home the victory.

Four of the races were won from the pole but none of the 10 races run were won from a starting position outside of the top six.

Chevrolet has five wins at Pocono while Ford has one and Toyota has four.

There are no current fulltime active drivers in the series with a prior win. Busch and Chastain are the only two drivers that are still running in the Gander Trucks on a part-time schedule with previous Pocono wins and Chastain is the only one scheduled to run this weekend for Niece Motorsports.

There have been 10 Gander Trucks races at Pocono with eight different pole winners and nine different race winners. William Byron was the youngest winner at 18 years, 8 months and one day in 2016. Kevin Harvick was the oldest winner in 2011 at 35 years, 7 months, 20 days.

Chastain holds the race record at 124.224 mph in 2019 and Austin Hill holds the qualifying record from last season’s race at 171.347.

Norm Benning, Matt Crafton and Johnny Sauter have the most starts in the series at Pocono with 10.

Last season’s race had the fewest leaders with only two and had the most laps led by a race winner with 54. Busch has the most wins for a truck owner, too, with four.

Eyeing the Playoff Outlook Following Homestead-Miami

Rank	Driver	Points	Wins	Pts From Cutoff
1	Grant Enfinger	161	2	In On Wins
2	Austin Hill	209	0	77
3	Christian Eckes #	165	0	33
4	Ben Rhodes	161	0	29
5	Todd Gilliland	148	0	16
6	Zane Smith #	147	0	15
7	Johnny Sauter	140	0	8
8	Brett Moffitt	137	0	5
9	Sheldon Creed	135	0	3
10	Tyler Ankrum	133	0	1
11	Derek Kraus #	132	0	-1
12	Matt Crafton	132	0	-1
13	Raphael Lessard #	114	0	-19
14	Stewart Friesen	112	0	-21
15	Tanner Gray #	111	0	-22

With five NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races in the books, it is time to take a look at the Playoff picture. Grant Enfinger’s two wins so far this season, has him atop the Playoff standings outlook as he is the only driver locked in on wins. That leaves nine spots still up for grabs.

Among the nine vying for a Playoff spot on points, series driver standings leader and Hattori Racing Enterprises driver, Austin Hill, has the most comfortable points cushion heading into the weekend break with 77 points up on the postseason cutoff. 

Right behind Hill is Kyle Busch Motorsport’s rookie Christian Eckes, who is 33 points ahead of the Playoff cutoff following Miami. Eckes gained four spots in the standings in South Beach and also took the series Sunoco rookie standings lead in the process.  Zane Smith is the second rookie challenger inside the top 10 in points; currently 15 markers above the Playoff cutline.

Then down in the Playoff bubble hotseat sits Tyler Ankrum, 10th in the driver standings just one point ahead of 11th place Derek Kraus and 12th place Matt Crafton (both have 132 points) the first two spot outside the postseason cutoff. Ankrum scored his first top five (runner-up) of the season last weekend at Homestead-Miami to bounce him up two spots ahead of Kraus and Crafton and into the Playoff discussion.

Busy weekend ahead for Stewart Friesen

Stewart Friesen has quite the weekend ahead of him with three races in 24 hours including one at Pocono Raceway for the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series.

Friesen and the Halmar-Friesen Racing team as a whole will be running all the races to raise awareness and donations for local food banks during these trying times.

Friesen will start the weekend at Albany-Saratoga Speedway on Friday and then Pocono Raceway on Saturday followed by another race at Orange County Fair Speedway.

Halmar’s Chris Larsen announced that Halmar International will match the amount of Friesen’s dirt racing winnings on Friday at Albany Saratoga and Saturday at Orange County Fair Speedway. The money will be donated to local food banks and are in addition to the separate potential donation for the No. 52 truck at Pocono on Saturday afternoon.

There will be a $5,000 donation for a top-10 finish and $10,000 for a win.

Friesen’s top-10 finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway sent $5,000 to the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

The team is taking donations and with each donation of $100 or more, Halmar will match your donation and send you a Halmar Racing to Beat Hunger t-shirt.

Here’s a link to donate: https://www.halmarracingtobeathunger.com/.

Austin Hill hunting for first 2020 win

Austin Hill, the current NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series points leader has had an extremely strong start to the season, but he is still looking for his first win of the season. He has two top fives and five top 10s to his name in five starts and has led 102 laps, the most of any fulltime Gander Trucks driver in 2020.

He is the only driver to have finished every Gander Trucks event in the top-10 and holds a 44-point lead over Christian Eckes in the points standings.

Last season, Hill started on the pole, but a clutch issue took him out of the race early and he finished 30^th. He has four starts at the track with a best finish of 11^th in 2017.

Rating the rookies

Christian Eckes still leads the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Sunoco Rookie-of-the-Year standings with 165 points and two awards.

Zane Smith is right behind him with 147 points and two awards.

Derek Kraus is the only other rookie driver to win an award so far this season and he’s in third with 114 points.

Raphael Lessard is in fourth, Tanner Gray is in fifth, Ty Majeski sixth, Spencer Davis seventh and Tate Fogleman is in eighth.

This weekend will mark Eckes’ second start in the series at Pocono. His first was last season for Kyle Busch Motorsports and he started 13^th and finished fourth. Eckes also won at Pocono last season in the ARCA Menards Series.

Smith will be making his Gander Trucks debut at Pocono this weekend for GMS Racing but did win at the track in the ARA Menards Series in 2018 and finished in the top-five in all four of his ARCA starts at the track.

Kraus, Lessard, Gray, Majeski, Davis, and Fogleman will all be making their series track debuts this weekend at Pocono.

NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Trucks Series, Etc.

Brandon Jones returns to Gander Trucks: Brandon Jones will be back in a truck for the first time this season as he wheels the No. 51 Tundra for Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) this weekend at Pocono. Jones, who scored his second career Xfinity Series win earlier this season in Phoenix, is scheduled to run four Gander Trucks events this season for KBM. He is looking for his first series victory. This will be his first start at Pocono.

“We’ve been so close in getting wins in the truck series. There were multiple races that we have been up front the entire time in races last year with KBM, so it would be really big for me to be in Victory Lane finally with these guys,” Jones said.

Chase Purdy in the No. 24: GMS Racing announced in early June that Chase Purdy would run five races for them in the Gander Trucks. He will make his debut this weekend at Pocono Raceway. In addition to Pocono, Purdy will run at Kentucky, both Kansas races and Talladega in the No. 24 Chevrolet. Purdy last competed full time in the ARCA Menards Series in 2018 and had 10 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes.

ARCA winners at Pocono: There are a handful of former ARCA Menards Series drivers that are currently running fulltime in the Gander Trucks and Xfinity Series that have a win to their name in the series at Pocono Raceway. Riley Herbst won the ARCA race at Pocono in 2017, while Harrison Burton won in 2018. Christian Eckes won in 2019. Zane Smith won at Pocono in the ARCA Menards Series in 2018.