The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is finally back after a four-week long break at Dover International Speedway for the JEGS 200 on Friday, May 4th at 5 pm ET on FOX Sports 1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Distance: 200 miles (200 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on lap 45),
Stage 2 (Ends on lap 90), Final Stage (Ends on lap 200)
What to Watch For – Fulltime Camping World Truck Series drivers have won the last three Dover races.
Chevrolet is trying to win two consecutive races here for the first time. Johnny Sauter won in 2017.
Toyota holds the longest winning streak, taking seven straight trophies from 2008-2018.
The inaugural truck series winner at Dover (in 2000) was Kurt Busch. His younger brother Kyle – now a series team owner – is the only driver to win back-to-back races (2013-14) here.
Eleven of the 18 Dover winners have started from a top-five position on the grid. The pole position has resulted in three victories.
The Return
It’s been seven years since the series has come back to action after a long early season hiatus, like this one, to Dover. The last time was in 2011 when Kyle Busch raced to the finish for the win.
Johnny Sauter won his first race at Dover last season in the No. 21 Allegiant Airlines Chevrolet, where he led the last 33 laps of the race. Aside from his one win at the track, he has four top- fives and six top-tens. Of the 32 drivers who started the race last spring, only 18 of them finished due to crashes and various mechanical issues.
This is Sauter’s 16th year in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and at the finish of last season, he had the most season wins of his career with four. This season, he has already taken home one victory at the series opener at Daytona International Speedway. He started in the second position and led 35 laps.
Sauter’s season has been a very good one so far – starting with his victory at Daytona, he then finished third at Atlanta Motor Speedway and second at Las Vegas. He finished 19th in the race at Martinsville.
If Sauter can take home the victory at Dover for the second year in a row, he’ll have two reasons to rejoice as he celebrated his 40th birthday on Tuesday, May 1.
Sauter is currently the driver standings with 181-points; followed by Grant Enfinger in the No. 98 CURB Records Ford with 152-points, and Brett Moffitt placing third in the standings in No. 16 AISIN Group Toyota with 150-points.
Of the three, Enfinger is the only one without a win this season as Moffitt took home the victory in Atlanta where he started in the tenth position and led only two laps.
Like Father, Like Son
When you see two trucks on track sporting the name ‘Gilliland’ on the back window, you won’t be imagining things. For the first time, veteran driver David Gilliland and his Sunoco Rookie of the Year-contending son Todd will face off against each other in a NASCAR national series race.
Todd will be entered in just his second race of the 2018 campaign behind the wheel of the No. 4 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports when the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series heads to Dover this Friday.
He isn’t eligible to compete on intermediate tracks or superspeedways until he reaches his 18th birthday on May 15. So, Todd had to sit on the sidelines and watch a cast of substitute drivers pilot his truck at Daytona, Atlanta, and Las Vegas – and will again at Kansas before he’s in the seat for the remainder of the season starting at Charlotte.
His dad drove it in the season-opener at Daytona before his truck owner, Kyle Busch, took over for Atlanta and Spencer Davis drove it in Las Vegas.
It wasn’t easy for Todd to sit back and watch other drivers pilot his truck.
“It’s been very hard. I’m a racer and all I want to do is race. Seeing other people jump in the truck you are going to be in the rest of the year is really tough, but you have to take every opportunity you have to learn and catch up to the guys who already have three more races worth of experience than I do.”
In his first race of 2018, Todd drove to a 14th-place finish at Martinsville after starting 23rd.
Todd competed in six Camping World Truck Series races in 2017, posting a pair of top- fives and three top-tens. He had the best finish of third at New Hampshire and crossed the line fifth at Martinsville in the fall.
David is racing the No. 54 Toyota for DGR-CROSLEY Racing – a team that was formed when David Gilliland Racing and CROSLEY Sports Group joined forces for the 2018 season. The organization, which fields late model, NASCAR K&N Pro Series, ARCA and Camping World Truck Series entries, is co-owned by David and Bo LeMastus.
David has 11 series starts under his belt and won the pole this season at Daytona while driving his son’s No. 4 KBM entry. He’s taken the green flag 333 times in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, including in the 2018 Daytona 500. He has a trio of poles (all on superspeedways), four top–five and eight top-ten finishes in NASCAR’s premier series.
Taking a Look Back at Dover
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Dover International Speedway are always ones to remember, especially when there have been so many notable trends throughout the years.
From 2008 to 2014, Toyota was the victorious manufacturer at Dover. That was until 2015 when Tyler Reddick in a Ford took the win.
Toyota came back for one year in 2016 with a Matt Crafton win but Johnny Sauter’s win last year in the No. 21 Chevrolet made that a quick in-and-out for Toyota.
If Sauter can pull off another victory this weekend, the Chevrolet will have won two in a row at Dover, something that has never happened for the manufacturer in this series at Dover.
2007: Chevrolet
2008: Toyota
2009: Toyota
2010: Toyota
2011: Toyota
2012: Toyota
2013: Toyota
2014: Toyota
2015: Ford
2016: Toyota
2017: Chevrolet
Profile: A Look at Three of the Series’ Top- Crew Chiefs
Back-To-Back Champions: Carl Joiner and Matt Crafton
Working Toward the Winner’s Circle: Ryan ‘Rudy’ Fugle and Noah Gragson
A Match Made in Racing Heaven: Joe Shear, Jr. and Johnny Sauter
Dover by the Numbers
Here’s a quick look at some numbers associated with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Dover:
3 – Three different drivers have won from the pole at Dover – Kyle Busch (2014), Scott Riggs (2001) and Kurt Busch (2000)
4 – Kyle Busch’s four truck series wins at Dover are the most among all race winners. In fact, Kyle Busch is the only driver to have multiple truck series wins at the Monster Mile.
5 – Five times the race winner has started tenth or worse.
5.7 – Average starting position of the race winner at Dover.
15 – The farthest back in the field a driver has come from to win the race (Ron Hornaday, Jr. – 2007).
17 – Matt Crafton’s 17 starts in the truck series at Dover are most among all drivers (he has participated in all but the inaugural series race at the track).
18 – There have been 18 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Dover International Speedway.
2000 – The first truck series race at Dover was run in 2000 and was won by Kurt Busch.
Dover International Speedway Quick Facts
With the Monster Mile at Dover International Speedway only a few days away, here are some quick facts you should know about the speedway.
Length: One mile
Track Surface: Concrete
Safety Apron and Pit Road Surface: Asphalt with concrete pit boxes
Banking: Straightaways, nine degrees; turns, 24 degrees
Width: Straightaways, 48 feet; turns, 58 feet
Safety Apron: Encircles the inside of the track, ten feet wide on straightaways and 21 feet wide in the turns.
Capacity: Approximately 85,000 race fans
Number of Pit Positions: 40, with water and electric
Length of Straightaways: 1,076 feet
Length of Pit Road: 1,580 feet long, 47 feet wide
Races: 18
Pole Winners: 14
Youngest Pole Winner: Darrell Wallace Jr (05/31/2013 – 19 years, 7 months, 23 days)
Oldest Pole Winner: Ron Hornaday Jr (05/30/2009 – 50 years, 11 months, 10 days)
Race Winners: 15
Youngest Winner: Tyler Reddick (05/29/2015 – 19 years, 4 months, 18 days)
Oldest Winner: Ron Hornaday Jr (06/01/2007 – 48 years, 11 months, 12 days)
Also Noteworthy…
Joey Gase Returns For Round Two: Joey Gase returns for his second race of the season at Dover International Speedway where he is running the No. 0 Driven2Honor.org Chevrolet for Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing. Gase also drove in Atlanta. It should be noted that this is only Gase’s second race ever in the NCWTS as well as his first one at Dover.
Changing It Up For Jesse Little: Like Joey Gase, Jesse Little will return to the 2018 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for his second race of the series in the No. 97 JJL Motorsports Ford. Little competed in the season’s second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February where he finished eighth for his best career series. Little hasn’t had the best of luck in the two races he’s been in at Dover. In 2015, he didn’t finish the race due to a crash and in 2017, he finished 14th after starting in the fifth position. This season marks the first time Little has ever raced in a Ford. Previously, he has raced in Toyotas and he had a brief stint in a Chevrolet at Chicago during the 2016 season.
Harrison Burton Looking For New Career-Best Finish: Harrison Burton may have only been in one NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race so far this season, but he will start up his engine again at Dover International Speedway this Friday. The 17-year-old’s first race of the 2018 season was at Martinsville where he finished eighth in the No. 51 DEX Imaging Toyota. Burton traveled to Dover in June 2017 for the first time where he started in the tenth position and finished in 13th. This is just the second of nine races Burton will be racing in this season with his expanded Camping World Truck Series schedule. Burton entered the 2018 season with seven starts under his belt. In his six starts during the 2017 season, he logged an average finish of 12.3 and earned his career-best fourth-place finish at Martinsville last October, which also happened to be his final start of the season.