Five things to watch in NASCAR Truck race at Iowa
The Sprint Cup Series is off this weekend, but NASCAR’s Camping World Truck and Xfinity series remain in action.
Photo by: NASCAR Media
Here are five things to watch in Saturday night’s Speediatrics 200 at Iowa Speedway:
1. Byron looking for more
Rookie William Byron looks for his third win of the season at Iowa, one of the few tracks in the series on which he has prior experience. Byron, at 18 years, 6 months and 12 days old became the youngest race winner in Texas Motor Speedway history last weekend.
“He went out and earned it,” said Byron’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle. “We were decent and kept getting the truck a little better, but we weren’t perfect. He found the top groove; he decided to move around; he stood on the pedal there at the end and made it happen.”
Byron is now tied with Matt Crafton for most wins in the series this season.
2. ThorSport trying to rebound from shop fire
Saturday night’s race is the first since a major fire did severe damage to ThorSport Racing’s headquarters last Sunday night in Sandusky, Ohio. The organization, which fields fulltime teams for Crafton, Rico Abreu, Ben Rhodes and Cameron Hayley, lost a lot of resources in the fire.
Crafton currently leads the series standings and is the only driver locked in the Chase.
In what the team hopes is a good sign, Rhodes was fastest in Friday’s first practice, while Hayley was second-fastest in the final practice.
3. Peters someone to watch
Red Horse Racing’s Timothy Peters ranks second in the series standings but is still searching for his first win of the season. Peters has finished in the top 10 of the series standings in each of his first seven fulltime seasons. In nine previous races at Iowa, Peters has two wins (2012 and 2013) and finished sixth last year.
4. Young gun gets another shot
Nick Drake, a Stewart-Haas Racing development driver, will make his second start of the season this weekend. He finished 16th in his debut at Dover, Del., in earlier this season. Drake’s entry is a collaboration between JR Motorsports and Premium Motorsports.
5. Quiroga gets the last-minute call-up
German Quiroga, who made his first Truck Series start since 2014 last weekend at Texas, returns to action with Red Horse Racing this week. Quiroga was a last-minute replacement for NASCAR Next driver Matt Tifft, who was forced to sit out this weekend’s Truck and Xfinity races to nurse a back problem.
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