The 2022 Camping World Truck Series continues with the first of two dirt races on the schedule. NASCAR officials opted to dump tons of dirt on Bristol Motor Speedway for a second year in a row. Why? I don’t really know. This year and last year could produce completely different races especially in the Cup Series, but overall this race is a gimmick that doesn’t really interest me. Martin Truex Jr. flat out dominated the Truck race at Bristol in 2021 with 105 laps led and 53 fastest laps on his way to winning the race. I will say, the most useful factoid you can take away from this Playbook is that the Cup Series drivers that participated in the Truck race in 2021, actually went on to run quite well in the Cup Series race. Now does that mean they finished well? No. Bubba Wallace and MTJ would get flat tires toward the end of the Cup race and didn’t finish well. But green flag runs went fairly well for the guys who had a little extra practice by running in the Truck race. For the race on Saturday night, notable Cup Series drivers Joey Logano (winner of last year’s Cup Series race on dirt), Austin Dillon, Harrison Burton, and Chase Elliott will compete to gain an edge on Sunday.
Now I will add that I picked a great weekend to head out of town. I’m not very interested in this race from a DFS perspective. Truthfully the next couple weeks will be relatively easy on my bankroll as I won’t be going super heavy for BrisDIRT or Talladega. That being said, I will likely not be in the Discord channel Saturday night since I’ll be at a wedding. But I’m only doing a few lineups and I’m not entirely sure if it’s even worth doing example lineups following Saturday’s heat races since I hate every aspect of dirt on Bristol.
There are about 100 dominator points up for grabs and I would be pretty surprised if Joey Logano or one of the other Cup Series drivers didn’t dominate the race and win it. We will likely see a good amount of cautions. Last year’s race had a dozen cautions for 56 laps. That’s over a third of the race run under yellow, which could make this a bit of an eyesore since I don’t have a ton of faith in these drivers to begin with.
Practice Results
I’ll touch on Practice Notes in the driver write-ups, but where everyone starts could drastically change my opinions on them. Here are the final practice results. Click the link and you can toggle between single-lap and ten-lap averages.
Here are the results from the first practice session.
And for those who may be curious, here is the starting order (set by random draw) for Saturday's heat races. Toggle to the second image posted by Pockrass to view the Truck order.
Driver Pool
Joey Logano ($10,900) If you’re paying this price tag for Logano you should try to build lineups as if he’s the lone dominator, but we’ll see how the heats shake out and what the starting lineup looks like. If, for whatever reason, he starts outside the top ten, he won’t be dominating the first stage but that doesn’t mean he can’t get there later in the race. But Logano is easily the favorite to win the race. He won last year’s Cup Series race on dirt and he got in over 120 laps during practice and the Truck was fastest during the final practice session. He will be very popular so if you’re maybe just making one lineup it could be best to fade him. In Cash games you can easily go here and expect 80% ownership in that format. But if you’re trying to take down a GPP with a unique lineup then fading Logano could be the way to go.
Chase Elliott ($10,700) Elliott was fast in practice with top ten speeds in both sessions. You can probably build a competent lineup with both Logano and Elliott but there will be plenty of people likely going that route. This 7-truck has looked great the last few weeks when a Hendrick driver has gotten behind the wheel and Saturday should be no different. As long as he stays clean he should finish well.
Stewart Friesen ($10,400) Friesen has a ton of dirt racing experience although he didn’t have the greatest showing in either Truck race on dirt in 2021, nor the Cup Series race. But still, we know he’s a top 12 driver in this series and his experience on dirt is still valuable so we can’t completely write him off. Ownership could come in light for Friesen assuming the field is paying up for Logano or Elliott. I’ll throw him into one of my three builds for sure, but we’ll have to wait and see where he starts. He is starting dead last in his respective heat. If you need a value play you could consider his wife, Jessica Friesen ($5,300) but she will need to qualify in order to run. Like Stewart, she has a lot of dirt racing experience.
Zane Smith ($10,200) I’m partially interested in Zane this week because from an ownership perspective I do think he could be fairly contrarian. In five races this year he has two wins, four top five finishes and is coming off his worst race of the season las week where he still led 55 laps. Now none of those tracks are like what we’ll see on Saturday. He wasn’t the greatest during either practice session, but Todd Gilliland ran this truck to a couple top five finishes last season. Granted, Toddfather is a far better dirt racer than Zane.
Ben Rhodes ($9,500) Rhodes, as always, is a dark horse in the Truck Series. He doesn’t have a win this year but he does have four finishes in the top five with a pair of runner-up finishes. He finished second here last year and seventh at Knoxville. His speeds were also on par with Joey Logano. This is a guy I would try to be overweight on compared to the field. I’m not ruling him out to potentially dominate and win the race. The only downside is that he starts eighth in his heat and he’ll need to make up some ground in this quick 15-lap race.
Buddy Kofoid ($9,300) Kofoid is a bit of an unknown, aside from the fact that he’s running in Kyle Busch’s 51-truck so that’ll instantly get everyone’s attention. Kofoid is a Toyota Racing Development driver and he’s the defending USAC National Midget Series champion. He’s raced a variety of cars on dirt, but nothing as heavy as what he’ll be in Saturday. Kofoid really started shining in the final practice session with top five speed so he seems to be getting the hang of it. He’s been very vocal about eventually driving in the Cup Series, so he’ll want to make a strong first impression in NASCAR.
Matt DiBenedetto ($8,000) If I had to venture a guess I’d say Matty D finishes 13th Saturday night. He finished 13th in last year’s Cup race at BrisDIRT. He also had the 13th-fastest single lap in the first practice session, and tenth-fastest lap in the second session. His long run speed held up as well. He’s probably underpriced by $800-$1,200 so if he qualifies outside the Top 15 somehow, then I’m very interested for DFS purposes.
Parker Kligerman ($7,400) Kligerman wasn’t fast by any means on Friday. His speeds were right about top 20 in the field which isn’t great. But Kligerman did finish top ten in this race a year ago and he is one of the more reliable drivers especially if he’s offering PD. Now there isn’t as much certainty when you throw dirt on the track and it raises the variance aspect for a sport with a ton of variance as it is.
Hailie Deegan ($7,000) It’s been a difficult season for Deegan both on and off the track. But I do think she has top 20 upside. She finished 19th at Bristol Dirt last year and was 21st at Knoxville as well. If she starts outside the top 25 then I’m certainly interested as she should have a relatively safe floor, but I wouldn’t expect her to necessarily break the slate.
Tanner Gray ($6,800) I’m a little surprised at this price tag for Gray, I won’t lie. He should be $800-$1,000 more, but with so many drivers priced up this week we’ll take the discount on Gray. Gray flashed top 20 speed in practice and he finished 13th here a year ago. He could be a bit popular so don’t go overboard with exposure in the event he busts. You will want some leverage.
Dean Thompson ($5,400) I don’t write up Dean Thompson all that often and truthfully, I wasn’t that interested heading into this weekend but at this price tag his ride looked pretty solid during practice. Obviously, anything could happen during Saturday’s heat races, but I liked what I saw on Friday. He was top 15 in ten-lap averages during both practice sessions and seems to be off the radar by most of the industry currently because they could be looking to the next driver.
Tate Fogleman ($5,200) Tate’s done pretty well this season for the most part, but he could be very popular on Saturday. His speeds were pretty impressive during practice. He had the third-best ten-lap average in the first practice, and the sixth-best ten-lap average in the final practice. That’s incredible for a guy who is $5,200 and should draw a ton of attention from a value perspective.
Spencer Boyd ($4,800) Here’s a sentence I was not planning on typing. Spencer Boyd might be my favorite Young’s Motorsports driver this week over Austin Dillon and Kaz Grala. Purely from a price point perspective, Boyd is worth looking at as a cheap punt. If he starts far enough back there’s room for him to move up and hit value at just $4,800. Boyd grabbed a top 25 finish here a year ago after starting P31. Both Grala and Dillon sustained damage during Friday’s practice. Grala’s truck took some very heavy damage that they’re working to repair ahead of tomorrow’s race since the backup truck isn’t prepped for a dirt race.
Drivers To Keep An Eye On During Saturday’s Heats: As noted in the Boyd section, Austin Dillon and Kaz Grala wrecked and took some damage in practice. It’s much worse for Grala as the truck needs serious repairs. If they don’t get their heat run in then we’re getting obvious chalk. I imagine Dillon will still compete in his heat, where he is scheduled to start at the front in heat 3. So if he holds his spot for 15 laps he’ll qualify well. Derek Kraus is always intriguing as a GPP play. He didn’t finish well in last year’s race but he was fifth at Knoxville. Ty Majeski and Tyler Ankrum are two guys that I just want to see where they qualify before throwing them into any builds. Ankrum was dead last in this race a year ago, but he’s looked better in this 16-truck and looked okay in practice. Majeski is the bigger question mark, but he looked very comfortable in practice with top ten speeds. He’s usually fairly reliable for a top 12 finish but where he starts will dictate the approach this week, as is the case with most of the field.