2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race Twenty-Two Charlotte Roval

Trucks in field: 36
Pole: Corey Heim (11)
Outside Pole: Layne Riggs (34)
Stages: 20-20-27
Weather: Sunny, 72°F, Feels like 76°, Feels like (shade) 71°, Wind NE 3 mph, Wind Gusts 6 mph

Crash on turn one involving pole-sitter Corey Heim (11) and Layne Riggs (34) collecting Grant Enfinger (9) as the race stays green. Riggs spins in front of the field and into Heim pinning Heim’s truck against the wall.

On lap 2 Ben Rhodes (99) sits in the grass with a lot of damage. He eventually gets the truck going and heads to pit road. He slid off track and into the tire barrier. He has a lot of damage as he smokes his way to pit toward pit road.

Caution on lap 3 of 67, likely due to Ben Rhodes (99) laying down fluid as he heads to pit road. MRN says the caution is due to tire barrier in turn six getting damaged by Ben Rhodes.

I’m trying to watch the television broadcast since Cup driver and series champion Joey Logano and former Cup driver and series champion Kevin ‘KHarv/Happy’ Harvick are in the booth with the awful FOXSports pit reporter Jamie Little. Too often I’m seeing the track surface from the front windscreen of a truck. Of course I have no idea of the relevance of the view. I then turn to a movie and listen to the radio broadcast. Unfortunately it’s a PRN broadcast so it’s more than a little hysterical, plus Cup driver Ross Chastain is in the booth. Yuck.

As a fan I need additional options to follow the race. Several years ago there was a feature called Race Buddy. When it began it consisted of several views of the race with only the sounds of the cars for audio. It was wonderful. I quickly became a fan of it and used it for the majority of the events for which it was available. They eventually offered the option – OPTION – of listening to the driver’s radio channel. As usual, the quality deteriorated as they added a guy talking. I don’t know if you would call him a host, or pit reporter or what. He was intrusive and unnecessary and awful. Then they added commercials that had a tendency to freeze everything and popped up randomly. They also threw spotter chatter over the audio, so I could rarely hear the sounds of the cars. As they added noise and debris to the feature they made it undesirable and I returned to the television and radio broadcasts.

NASCAR has a bad habit of mucking up anything positive they offer. I grew to love the simplicity and clarity of following a race on nascar.com. The leaderboard was simple and straight-forward. The lap-by-lap feature was timely, accurate, thorough, yet concise. Both features have become resource hogs that frequently malfunction. The television broadcasts used to be enjoyable, now they’re just noisy and rarely show much of the actual race. They spend a lot of time showing everything but the actual on-track racing action – though they endlessly show the track surface and the wall through the windshields and from the bumpers of vehicles. There’s constant chatter – the booth guys never take a breath, there’s random loud music beds, there’s spotter chatter while the booth guys continue to babble, there are pit reporters giving their ten cents to accompany the terrible camera views and seemingly infinite shots of people doing what we can’t – watching the on-track action. I miss decent racing coverage, by talented broadcasters, with the focus on the sport. The television crew go out of their way to avoid simply showing the race. If they don’t believe it is worth watching, why should the viewer? They choose idiotic camera shots that completely obscure the point of the exercise – the racing. There’s a really dumb shot that has become a favorite through a piece of plastic of the passenger side of the car for no apparent reason. It never provides anything of value. The drivers have consistently complained over the years that they have limited vision inside the vehicles. For unknown reasons the television broadcast insists on spending loads of time on those limited views. It is very boring visually and quite off-putting to anyone attempting to follow the action.

Kaden Honeycutt (52) wins stage one.

Green flag pit stops are underway on lap 35 of 67. There’s a tire carcass on the track near the apron and so far the race stays green. Joey Logano said it will be interesting to see how NASCAR handles the debris since it’s a big piece, below the racing lane, and spotted during green flag pit stops. Looks like they’re going to ignore it until the end of the stage. Having Harvick and Logano in the booth make the race listenable in spite of Jamie Little.

Kaden Honeycutt (52) wins stage two.

With three laps to go leader Brent Crews (1) radioes in saying he is running out of fuel.

Toni Breidinger is stopped on the side of the track, out of fuel, on lap 64 of 67. She is Crews’ teammate. The caution comes out on lap 64 of 67.

Crews (1) has led 56 of 65 laps so far.

Crews pits, as does Connor Zilsch (7), and many others. Corey Heim (11) stays out.

Harvick and Logano reported that Heim asked why he didn’t pit and crew chief Scott Zippadelli told him they would get eaten up coming off pit road due to the damage on the truck so he kept Heim out.

Restarting in overtime on lap 68 of 70 with Corey Heim (11), Connor Mosack (81), Layne Riggs (34), Chandler Smith (38), Connor Zilisch (7), Ty Majeski (98), Brent Crews (1), Rajah Caruth (71), Kaden Honeycutt (52), Giovanni Ruggiero (17) up front.

Layne Riggs (34) didn’t get going on the restart and lost positions and held up the lane.

Chandler Smith (38) spins in turn seven.

Heim is way ahead of the field by the time they get to the oval track.

Kaden Honeycutt spins from the top five on the final lap.

Corey Heim (11) easily wins 1.338 seconds ahead of second position. This is his tenth win of the season; the most in series history.

Well that was a disappointing finish to what had been a relatively decent Roval race. I think it was decent because I was listening to Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick call it rather than trying to watch the race, or enduring the PRN crew.

Congrats to Rajah Caruth (71) on a fourth place finish.

Congrats to Grant Enfinger (9) on working back to a seventh place finish after sustaining damage in the lap one, turn one wreck.

Kaden Honeycutt (52) ended up finishing 14th after the spin.

Layne Riggs said something broke on the rear-end housing. He says that’s twice this year he’s gotten wrecked by the 9. He had no sway bar the whole race.

Harvick says obviously the 9 truck of Grant Enfinger made a mistake on lap one and Corey Heim and Layne Riggs were on the other side of it.

It would be great if KHarv and Logano could call all of the truck races with a talented broadcaster like Vince Welch.

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2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race Twenty-Two Charlotte Roval

Next Race: Talladega

GO 9 & 71!!!!