The official 2024 Clean Harbors 250 NASCAR TRUCK Series entry list features top NASCAR drivers set to compete at Richmond Raceway, highlighting the full lineup of race participants and teams.
Saturday, August 10th, 2024
Richmond Raceway, Richmond, VA
The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series returns to action in Saturday night’s Clean Harbors 250 at Richmond Raceway – the last regular season race of the year and one that will formally set the 10-driver 2024 Playoff field and crown the Regular Season Champion.
Five drivers have earned Playoff positions with victories this year – including Christian Eckes, Corey Heim, Nicholas Sanchez, Ty Majeski and Rajah Caruth. Five other drivers are currently “In” Playoff position via points – Tyler Ankrum (+85), Grant Enfinger (+77), Taylor Gray (+48), defending series champion Ben Rhodes (+22) and Tanner Gray (+5).
Daniel Dye (-5) and Stewart Friesen (-16) are just below the cutoff line and within reasonable distance to challenge for a Playoff position in the right race circumstances Saturday night. Three-time series champion Matt Crafton is just behind Friesen in the standings, 43 points back.
McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Eckes holds a 50-point advantage on TRICON Garage’s Heim for the regular season title despite Heim’s series best five-win tally. The 23-year-old Eckes could clinch the Regular Season Championship by scoring 11 or more points on Saturday – the regular season title includes the all-important 15-point bonus Playoff points to carry throughout the seven-race postseason. If Eckes claims that title, he would be the eighth different driver to do so.
Enfinger, driver of the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet, is the only fulltime driver in the field that has a previous win at Richmond, claiming the 2020 victory in the series’ first race back at the three-quarter miler after a 15-year break. And Enfinger’s 5.5 average finish (four top-10s in as many races) is best among those with at least four starts at the track.
Carson Hocevar – now a rookie in the NASCAR Cup Series – won the Richmond truck race last year by more than 2-seconds over Majeski, who led a race best 168 of the 250 laps. Among the four drivers closest to the cutoff mark, Rhodes was 12th last year, Tanner Gray was 16th, Dye was 21st and Friesen was 27th.
Of that foursome, Rhodes boasts the best average finish of 10.0 in his four Richmond starts with a pair of top-10s and 79 laps led. Tanner Gray has never scored a top-10 at Richmond with a best showing of 16th-place in three of his four starts there. Dye has just one previous race at the track and Friesen has one top-10 in his four starts – 10th place in 2020 – and has never led a lap.
Highly-touted young ARCA Menards Series drivers Connor Zilisch, 18, and William Sawalich, 17, will be on the starting grid this Saturday. Zilisch will drive the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet making his second of five scheduled starts on the season. Sawalich will be making his make his fourth start this season driving the No. 1 TRICON Garage Toyota Tundra. He scored a season best 12th-place finish at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in the last race. He finished 10th at Richmond last year.
Ty Majeski took the lead on a restart with eight laps remaining in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series regular season finale Clean Harbors 250 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway to hoist his second consecutive race trophy.
Majeski’s No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford led Christian Eckes’ No. 19 Chevy across the finish line by a slight .936-seconds to earn the win and vindicate a gut-wrenching loss at the three-quarter mile Richmond track from a year ago when he dominated the race only to lose the lead with four laps remaining.
That tough loss was still very much on the mind of the 29-year old Wisconsin native this weekend. And he nearly gave this one away too after receiving a pit road penalty when a tire got loose on his first pit stop during the Stage 1 break.
“This feels good, we’ve had great ThorSport trucks here at Richmond the last two years, but found different ways to lose them (races) and tried to do that again tonight ’’ said Majeski, who now has five career wins in the series.
“We really need to clean that stuff up.’’
Eckes, driver of the No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet officially claimed the regular season championship in winning Saturday night’s opening stage – his series best eighth stage victory of the season.
“Confidence is high for sure,’’ said Eckes, a three-race winner in 2024. “I feel like we’re in a better position than we were last year and I thought we were in a pretty good position last year too. Real proud of the team. We didn’t have quite what we needed today but proud of everybody and ready to get these next seven races underway.”
For the first time in the modern Playoff format, a driver raced his way into championship contention in the last cutoff race. Daniel Dye, 20, finished eighth in the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet – good enough to put him in the Playoffs by 12-points over TRICON Garage Racing’s Tanner Gray, who finished 12th.
“Just all the hard work these guys have put in and it’s really good to validate myself and the work I’ve put in to change up what I’ve been doing,’’ Dye said. “It’s so cool to have our 43 in the Playoffs.
Tanner Gray stood by his car, understandably frustrated with the night.
“We just weren’t good enough,’’ Tanner Gray said. “Didn’t have the speed, didn’t have the balance and I didn’t do a good enough job, so I’m really frustrated.”
His younger brother Taylor Gray finished third Saturday night, followed by veteran Grant Enfinger and rookie Layne Riggs. The third-place finish was enough to secure Gray’s position in the 10-driver Playoff field and comes in his first full-time season. Fourth-place finisher Enfinger led the most laps – 98 of the 250 – and earned the Stage 2 win; his first stage victory since last season.
Tyler Ankrum, defending series champion Ben Rhodes, Dye, Ty Dillon and rookie Connor Hall rounded out the top-10 in Saturday’s race.
The 10-driver Playoff field will include TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim, a five-race winner who holds a three-point advantage on Eckes to start the seven-race Playoff run. Majeski goes into the Playoff run ranked third, followed by fellow race winners this season, Nick Sanchez and Rajah Caruth.
Enfinger is seeded sixth followed by Ankrum, Taylor Gray, Rhodes and Dye.
The Playoff opener, the LiUNA 175, is Aug. 25 at the Milwaukee Mile Speedway (4 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“These are my first two wins outside of the playoffs and they’re right on the cusp of the playoffs, so this team just seems to click right around playoff time,’’ Majeski said. “Between that and a lot of these racetracks are just our bread and butter. [Crew chief] Joe [Shear] and I, I feel like we’re pretty good at these last two racetracks and we’re going to another familiar one in Milwaukee and the way that this playoff schedule lays out is pretty good for our team. I’m excited to get going.”
ENTRY | # | DRIVER | HOMETOWN | DOB | AGE | MAKE | SPONSOR | TEAM | CREW CHIEF |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 9 | Grant Enfinger | Fairhope, AL | Jan 22, 1985 | 39 | Chevrolet | Grant County Mulch | CR7 Motorsports | Jeff Stankiewicz |
2 | 88 | Matt Crafton | Tulare, CA | Jun 11, 1976 | 48 | Ford | Serta/Menards | ThorSport Racing | Jeriod Prince |
3 | 56 | Timmy Hill | Port Tobacco, MD | Feb 25, 1993 | 31 | Toyota | Shophillmotorsports.com | Hill Motorsports | Terry Elmore |
4 | 25 | Ty Dillon | Lewisville, NC | Feb 27, 1992 | 32 | Chevrolet | Rackley Roofing | Rackley W.A.R | Shane Wilson |
5 | 41 | Bayley Currey | Driftwood, TX | Oct 29, 1996 | 27 | Chevrolet | DQS | Niece Motorsports | Wally Rogers |
6 | 76 | Spencer Boyd | Creve Coeur, MO | Jun 26, 1995 | 29 | Chevrolet | Latitude Aero | Freedom Racing Enterprises | Mike Hillman Jr. |
7 | 42 | Matt Mills | Lynchburg, VA | Nov 14, 1996 | 27 | Chevrolet | J.F. Electric/Utilitra | Niece Motorsports | Jon Leonard |
8 | 02 | Mason Massey | Douglasville, GA | Jan 24, 1997 | 27 | Chevrolet | BRUNT | Young's Motorsports | Trip Bruce III |
9 | 75 | Stefan Parsons | Cornelius, NC | Jun 15, 1998 | 26 | Chevrolet | TBA | Henderson Motorsports | Chris Carrier |
10 | 52 | Stewart Friesen | Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario | Jul 25, 1983 | 41 | Toyota | Halmar International | Halmar Friesen Racing | Jimmy Villeneuve |
11 | 99 | Ben Rhodes | Louisville, KY | Feb 21, 1997 | 27 | Ford | TBA | ThorSport Racing | Doug Randolph |
12 | 14 | Trey Hutchens | Lexington, NC | May 20, 1998 | 26 | Chevrolet | TBA | Trey Hutchens Racing | Bobby Hutchens |
13 | 18 | Tyler Ankrum | San Bernardino, CA | Mar 6, 2001 | 23 | Chevrolet | LiUNA! | McAnally Hilgemann Racing | Mark Hillman |
14 | 19 | Christian Eckes | MIddletown, NY | Nov 10, 2000 | 23 | Chevrolet | Instacoat Premium Products | McAnally Hilgemann Racing | Charles Denike |
15 | 77 | Chase Purdy | Meridian, MS | Nov 11, 1999 | 24 | Chevrolet | Bama Buggies | Spire Motorsports | Jason Trinchere |
16 | 98 | Ty Majeski | Seymour, WI | Aug 18, 1994 | 29 | Ford | Soda Sense/Curb Records | ThorSport Racing | Joe Shear Jr |
17 | 15 | Tanner Gray | Artesia, NM | Apr 15, 1999 | 25 | Toyota | Operation 300 | TRICON Garage | Jerame Donley |
18 | 11 | Corey Heim | Marietta, GA | Jul 5, 2002 | 22 | Toyota | Safelite | TRICON Garage | Scott Zipadelli |
19 | 33 | Lawless Alan | Los Angeles, CA | Feb 2, 2000 | 24 | Ford | AUTOParkit | Reaume Brothers Racing | Doug George |
20 | 5 | Dean Thompson | Anaheim, CA | Aug 30, 2001 | 22 | Toyota | Thompson Pipe Group | TRICON Garage | Derek Smith |
21 | 32 | Bret Holmes | Munford, AL | May 5, 1997 | 27 | Chevrolet | Best Value Carriers | Bret Holmes Racing | Mike Shiplett |
22 | 22 | Keith McGee | Eagle River, AK | May 7, 1981 | 43 | Ford | TBA | Reaume Brothers Racing | Pedro Lopez |
23 | 17 | Taylor Gray | Denver, NC | Mar 25, 2005 | 19 | Toyota | JBL | TRICON Garage | Jeff Hensley |
24 | 46 | Thad Moffitt | Trinity, NC | Sep 12, 2000 | 23 | Chevrolet | Safety-Kleen | Young's Motorsports | Tyler Young |
25 | 2 | Nicholas Sanchez | Miami, FL | Jun 10, 2001 | 23 | Chevrolet | Gainbridge | Rev Racing | Kevin Manion |
26 | 71 | Rajah Caruth | Atlanta, GA | Jun 11, 2002 | 22 | Chevrolet | HendrickCars.com | Spire Motorsports | Chad Walter |
27 | 13 | Jake Garcia | Monroe, GA | Mar 3, 2005 | 19 | Ford | Quanta Services | ThorSport Racing | Rich Lushes |
28 | 90 | Justin Carroll | Williamsburg, VA | Dec 8, 1995 | 28 | Toyota | Carroll's Automotive/Duratain | Terry Carroll Motorsports | Terry Carroll |
29 | 45 | Kaden Honeycutt | Willow Park, TX | Jun 23, 2003 | 21 | Chevrolet | Niece | Niece Motorsports | Phil Gould |
30 | 21 | Mason Maggio | Palm Beach Gardens, FL | Jul 7, 2004 | 20 | Ford | Rock Hill ACE Hardware | Floridian Motorsports | Carl Long |
31 | 38 | Layne Riggs | Bahama, NC | Jun 11, 2002 | 22 | Ford | Love's RV Stops | Front Row Motorsports | Dylan Cappello |
32 | 43 | Daniel Dye | DeLand, Florida | Dec 4, 2003 | 20 | Chevrolet | Champion Container | McAnally Hilgemann Racing | Blake Bainbridge |
33 | 20 | Jerry Bohlman | Milton, FL | Jan 1, 1970 | n/a | Chevrolet | Bowl4Life | Young's Motorsports | Dj Powell jr |
34 | 1 | William Sawalich | Eden Prairie, MN | Oct 3, 2006 | 17 | Toyota | Starkey/Soundgear | TRICON Garage | Seth Smith |
35 | 66 | Conner Jones | Fredericksburg, VA | Feb 22, 2006 | 18 | Ford | TSPORT | ThorSport Racing | Josh Hankish |
36 | 7 | Connor Zilisch | Charlotte, NC | Jul 21, 2006 | 18 | Chevrolet | Silver Hare Racing | Spire Motorsports | Brian Pattie |
37 | 91 | Connor Hall | Hampton, VA | Jan 1, 1997 | 27 | Chevrolet | A-All Mini Storage | McAnally Hilgemann Racing | Darren Fraley |