Sept. 24, 2015
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
Born
to modest beginnings in the American Southwest, NASCAR’s launching pad,
otherwise known as the Camping World Truck Series, will celebrate a
major milestone on Saturday
afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
There,
shortly after 1 p.m. ET (on FS1), the green flag will signal the start
of the 500th race in a series that has provided indispensable impetus to
the careers of some of
NASCAR’s top stars.
Carl
Edwards, for one, recognizes the debt he owes to the series and to
long-time owners such as Mike Mittler, who gave Edwards his start in
trucks.
“The
Truck Series means a lot to me, and it means a lot to my career, for
the fact that Mike Mittler has owned a truck since the beginning of the
Truck Series,” Edwards said.
“If it weren’t for that opportunity from Mike Mittler, and Jack Roush
hiring me to drive his trucks, I would not be here today.
“So I’m really grateful for the Truck Series, and I had a lot of fun driving those trucks.”
Edwards
won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year title in the Truck Series in 2003
before graduating to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Greg Biffle, Kurt
Busch, Austin Dillon and Ryan
Blaney are other former Truck Series Rookie of the Year winners
currently racing at NASCAR’s highest level.
The
Truck Series has changed markedly since its debut on the national stage
at Phoenix International Raceway in 1995, where Mike Skinner, already
38 years old at the time,
won the Skoal Bandit Copper World Classic by .09 seconds over Terry
Labonte.
In
its formative years, the Truck Series was a repository for veteran
drivers. Skinner won the first series championship. Ron Hornaday Jr.,
perhaps the most identifiable name
in series history, claimed the title in 1996, the first of his record
four championships.
Veterans
Hornaday and Jack Sprague were kings of the series from 1996 through
1999 before Biffle won the title in 2000 to advance another rung up the
ladder that would take
him to the Cup series in short order.
The
periodic appearances of Kyle Busch notwithstanding, it’s fair to say
that older, more experienced drivers dominated the Truck Series until
2011. Hornaday won his third
championship in 2007 and his fourth in 2009, amassing a series-record
51 victories along the way.
Todd
Bodine won the second of his two titles in 2010, at age 46, before
Dillon and James Buescher notched back-to-back championships in 2011 and
2012 at ages 21 and 22, respectively.
Dillon
and Buescher are emblematic of the changing face of the Truck Series,
which now features more teenagers and 20-somethings than drivers in
their 30s and 40s.
For
one thing, team owners like Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Dale
Earnhardt Jr., have embraced the Truck Series as an affordable way to
give back to the sport by launching
the careers of young drivers.
Erik
Jones, 19, who drives for Kyle Busch Motorsports, is the current series
leader. Tyler Reddick, also 19 and a Brad Keselowski Racing protégé, is
second.
“I
think the Truck Series is a great division,” Busch said. “It’s
certainly a lot of fun. I enjoy it. It’s a level at which I can be
competitive owning a race team. ...
“This level ... I feel it gives us a great chance to bring up the (young) talent to the upper level of NASCAR racing.”
Owning
his own team also gives Busch a chance to compete in the occasional
race. With 44 victories in the series, he is second only to Hornaday,
and he’ll have a chance to
move one win closer this weekend at New Hampshire.
“Having its 500th race and being in that race is going to be special for me,” Busch said.
Keselowski
is part of the Truck Series’ present and future, but his love for the
trucks is rooted in the past. His father, Bob Keselowski, raced in the
series debut at Phoenix.
Bob Keselowski took his only checkered flag in the series in 1997, and
he and Brad remain the only father/son combination to win races in the
trucks.
“The
Truck Series for me has been a huge part of my career and a huge part
of my family from the get-go,” Keselowski said. “My dad ran in the
first-ever truck race at Phoenix,
and I still remember that day.
“I
still remember watching that race, and I remember how big a deal the
Truck Series was when it started and how big a deal it is now to young
drivers and the future of our
sport.”
Two-time
defending Truck Series champion Matt Crafton once would have been
typical of the series. Now, at 39, he’s a throwback to an earlier era.
But Crafton is content to
race for wins and titles in the Truck Series, as opposed to driving
less competitive equipment at a higher level.
“If
I stay here for the rest of my driving career, I’ll definitely be happy
with that,” Crafton said. “I know each and every week I can go win
races. I have no desire to go
somewhere where I’m going to run 15th to 25th and be happy with that.”
A
nine-time winner in the Truck Series, Crafton is seeking his first New
Hampshire victory this weekend, as he tries to stave off the growing
youth movement in the Camping
World Truck Series for yet another season.
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