Truck Series Playoffs Set: Chandler Smith, Noah Gragson win at Pocono

In part of the lone Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway, the weekend also featured the upcoming stars of the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. For the truck series, it was already the final race of the regular season before setting the 10-driver field for the Truck Series Playoffs.

This race resulted in Chandler Smith picking up his second win of the season, as he had to hold off a hard-charging Ryan Preece and his No. 17 Ford F-150.

“We’ve been going through a little bit of a struggle here recently, but just when we needed to shine and we started shining,” Chandler Smith said after the race.

As for another Smith, that being Zane Smith, clinched the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Regular Season Championship. Zane finished 13th in the race after suffering throttle issues early in the race.

“Man, today was a major struggle,” Zane Smith said. “Started out from the green flag to pretty much the end of Stage 2 our throttle was sticking and everything we were doing wasn’t fixing it. So, little worried at times because I knew I just had to have a couple points. Long day, once we did get it right still fought a really, really tight truck, but there’s no giving up,” Smith added. “Glad we’re on to the Playoffs and ready to get this postseason started.”

Matt Crafton was the last driver to get in via points by 17 points over Derek Kraus. Crafton also won the 2019 Truck Series Championship, his third title, despite having a winless season.

“These guys did everything they were supposed to and worked their rear ends off with TRD and worked on the simulator, working on getting our set-ups better and we were really good on the short runs, we had a way better truck than where we finished,” Crafton said after the race.

Todd Bodine also made his 800th career National Series start and his final NASCAR start, finishing 36th after wrecking out on lap 13.

Here are the ten drivers competing for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship:

Zane Smith (Regular Season Champion)

Chandler Smith

Ben Rhodes (Defending Champion)

John Hunter Nemechek

Stewart Friesen

Christain Eckes

Ty Majeski

Carson Hocevar

Grant Enfinger

Matt Crafton

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series begins the playoffs on Friday, July 29th at Indianapolis Raceway Park for the TSport 200. It will be the first time the truck series will be racing at the short track since 2011. The race will start at 9:00 pm EST on FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

As for the NASCAR Xfinity Series, it was an exciting battle between Noah Gragson and Ty Gibbs in the final 15 laps. Gragson was able to edge out Ty Gibbs to the checkered flag by 0.281 seconds, earning his third win of the season.

“That was probably the best I’ve ever driven there,” Gragson said in his post-race interview. “I’m worn out. Working my ass off out there to keep the 54 back. He’s pretty fast.”

“I had to work for it. It was tough. Kept getting tight, tight, tight and with 15 to go, I didn’t think I could hold him off. But we just keep digging.”

“It definitely hurt us giving him a tire advantage,” Ty Gibbs also said. “But I was so surprised to be able to hang with the 9 when he was on. Had a great car, just didn’t put it together. I just made some mistakes and we’ll come back next weekend.”

The race also had a red flag period that involved five cars, involved Jeb Burton being collided by Ricky Stenhouse Jr into the pit road wall, flipping Burton’s car over onto his roof. The NASCAR AMR Safety Crew immediately responded, checked that Burton was okay, and then carefully moved his car back onto its tires. Burton climbed out un-assisted and the wreckage was cleaned up.

Josh Berry finished third, AJ Allmendinger was fourth, and Sheldon Creed finished fifth. Rounding out the top ten were Sam Mayer, Justin Allgaier, Austin Hill, Daniel Hemric, and Cole Custer.

The Xfinity Series heads next to the Indianapolis Road Course for the Pennzoil 150. The race will start at 3:30 pm EST on NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR.