Martinsville Speedway has been a particularly strong breeding ground for NASCAR’s young drivers of late – especially in the Camping World Truck Series, which hosts the Alpha Energy Solutions 250 Saturday afternoon at the track (2 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota driver Noah Gragson scored his first series win in the last series race here in November 2017.
This weekend the 19-year-old will have fierce competition from a pair of fellow teenagers, 17-year olds Harrison Burton and Todd Gilliland. Both of the other two Kyle Busch Motorsports drivers also have good reason to be optimistic at the half-mile.
Burton, the 2017 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East champion and son of former Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series star Jeff Burton, scored a career-best fourth-place finish in the series in his last start at Martinsville, in November.
Gilliland, son of veteran Monster Energy Series racer, and 2007 Daytona 500 pole winner David Gilliland is making his seventh career truck start. A two-time NASCAR K&N Series West champion, Gilliland finished 2017 with three consecutive top-ten truck series finishes. He was fifth – one position behind Burton – in the November Camping World Truck Series race here at Martinsville.