On the road to Michigan for Gander Trucks

The NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series had a weekend break last weekend after a historic weekend at Kansas Speedway.

The Gander Trucks competed in their first ever doubleheader weekend at Kansas, where Matt Crafton snapped his winless streak and Austin Hill got his long-awaited first win of the season.

The series will head to Michigan International Speedway for a Friday evening race, the Henry Ford Health System 200 (6 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Austin Hill won last season’s Gander Trucks race at Michigan starting from sixth-place.

Michigan International Speedway is a 2-mile track with 18 degrees of banking in corners, 12 degrees of banking on the frontstretch and five degrees of banking on the backstretch. The frontstretch is 3,600 feet long and the backstretch is 2,242 feet long.

Johnny Sauter holds the race record in a Toyota at 161.110 mph from August 18, 2014.

Greg Biffle, Travis Kvapil and Brett Moffitt have the most Gander Trucks wins at Michigan with two, Crafton has the most poles (three) and Kyle Busch has the most top fives (eight). Busch and Crafton are tied for the most top 10s (nine). Only one race has been won from the pole position and it was in 2007 by Kvapil.

Toyota has the most wins by a manufacturer at the track with eight. Jack Roush is the winningest truck owner with five.

Friday night’s race will be 200 miles and 100 laps. Stage 1 will end on Lap 20 and Stage 2 will end on Lap 40.

Triple Truck Challenge is back!

The Triple Truck Challenge is returning his year after a successful debut last season. This year, the program will start at the Daytona International Speedway road course at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 16.

The second race will take place at Dover International Speedway and the third race of the challenge will be at World Wide Technology Raceway at gateway on August 30.

This year’s rules will copy last season. The drivers will compete for cash prizes:

• $50,000 bonus for the race winner of any of the three events
• If a driver wins two of the three events, they’re awarded an extra $50,000, totaling $150,000
• Win all three events and take home an additional $300,000 for a total of $500,000 in prize money.

Greg Biffle came out of retirement in 2019 to win the first Triple Truck Challenge event at Texas Motor Speedway for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Brett Moffitt won at Iowa Speedway and Ross Chastain won at Gateway.

“The Trip” was originally supposed to take place beginning April 18 at Richmond Raceway and continuing into May at Dover and Charlotte Motor Speedway, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic it was rescheduled.

Playoff picture after Kansas doubleheader

The doubleheader weekend at Kansas Speedway for the Gander Trucks put the Playoff picture into perspective for the series.

There were two new winners at Kansas in Matt Crafton and Austin Hill, claiming their spot in the Playoffs. Prior to that, there were only two drivers locked in – Grant Enfinger and Sheldon Creed. Now, there are only six spots left up for grabs.

Rank	Driver	Points	Race Wins	Playoff Pts	Pts from Cutoff
1	Grant Enfinger	320	2	11	In On Wins
2	Austin Hill	394	1	6
3	Matt Crafton	321	1	5
4	Sheldon Creed	319	1	8
5	Ben Rhodes	351	0	0	84
6	Christian Eckes #	344	0	0	77
7	Zane Smith #	344	0	3	77
8	Brett Moffitt	325	0	2	58
9	Derek Kraus #	294	0	0	27
10	Todd Gilliland	289	0	0	22
11	Tyler Ankrum	267	0	0	-22
12	Johnny Sauter	236	0	0	-53
13	Tanner Gray #	230	0	0	-59
14	Stewart Friesen	218	0	0	-71
15	Raphael Lessard #	217	0	0	-72

With 18 races in the books, former series champion Johnny Sauter is below the Playoff cutline after a tough few weekends. He currently sits in 12^th, 53 points back from the final Playoff spot. Tyler Ankrum dropped below the cutline after Crafton and Hill secured their Playoff spots at Kansas and is now sitting in 11^th.

GMS Racing adds Kris Wright to ARCA, Gander Trucks roster

GMS Racing announced this week that Kris Wright will run a partial schedule for the team in 2020, piloting the No. 21 Chevrolet in the ARCA Menards Series and the No. 24 Chevrolet in the Gander Trucks.

He will make his ARCA Menards Series debut with the team this weekend at Michigan International Speedway and will make his Gander Trucks debut on August 16 at the Daytona Road Course.

Wright made his ARCA West debut in June at the Utah Motorsports Campus doubleheader, finishing second and third in the two events. He also finished second in the LMP2 class in the 2019 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Wright, who is 26 years old, won the IMSA Prototype Challenge Championship in 2018 and was the IMSA Prototype Challenge Rookie of the Year in 2017.

The ARCA Menards Series race at Michigan, the VizCom 200, will be on Sunday, August 9 at 1 p.m. ET on MAVTV and NBC Sports Gold TrackPass.

In a press release, Wright said, “I’m really excited to be making my first ARCA and NASCAR starts with GMS and Chevrolet. You always want to be doing it with the best team. I’m a Chevy guy from birth so it’s a dream come true.”

David Gravel making Gander Trucks debut

David Gravel made his stock car racing debut in the ARCA Menards Series season-opener at Daytona International Speedway in February and is set to make his Gander Trucks debut this Friday at Michigan International Speedway.

He was originally scheduled to make his debut at Eldora Speedway until the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the race for the year. He will now make the switch from dirt to asphalt in the No. 24 GMS Racing Chevrolet.

Gravel has 54 career World of Outlaw wins to his name and he was the 2019 Knoxville Nationals champion. The 28-year-old was the first driver since 1992 to collect a perfect 500 score at the Knoxville Nationals.

Gravel finished 12^th at Daytona in the season-opener for the ARCA Menards Series after starting ninth.

ChevyGoods.com will be on board the No. 24 with Gravel.