Photo – Robert Laberge/Getty Images
The Camping World Truck Series heads to the Texas Motor Speedway for its first of two visits there on Friday night.
Joe and John Hunter Nemechek have split the No. 8 truck this season for the SWM-NEMCO Motorsports team. John Hunter finished sixth last week at Dover.
The team looks to do well this weekend as team co-owner Sid Mauldin is battling cancer.
“We’re looking forward to heading to Texas this weekend where our co-owners, Sid and Dawna Mauldin, call home and have their business so we’re really motivated to do well in their ‘stomping grounds,’” said the elder Nemechek. “I’ve always enjoyed running at Texas and we have a win and a few top-five finishes there so it’ll be exciting to race it for the first time in a truck.”
Joe grabbed his only win at Texas in the Nationwide Series in March 2003.
German Quiroga returns to the track where he scored his first career top-five finish last June. He’ll look to improve on his fourth-place finish on Friday night. The Mexican driver is off to a good start this season, now sitting fourth in points, just six markers behind his Red Horse Racing teammate and points leader Timothy Peters.
The No. 51 team of Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) is on a roll, winning the last three races and four of five this season. Busch scored the win last week at Dover, making it five consecutive Truck Series wins. The Las Vegas native accomplished a similar feat back in 2009.
With the Sprint Cup Series off at Pocono Raceway this weekend, 18-year-old Erik Jones is wheeling the No. 51 Toyota in his intermediate début for KBM. He will skip his high school graduation to race Friday night. Jones scored his first truck win at Phoenix last November, as the 51 team has won six of the last seven Truck Series races back to Jones’ win.
Don’t count out his KBM teammate Darrell Wallace Jr. either. Wallace finished sixth last June and is still looking for his first win on the season.
Another team to keep an eye on is ThorSport Racing. Johnny Sauter finished runner-up to Ty Dillon last November at Texas and swept both races in 2012.
Sauter’s teammate, Matt Crafton, typically runs well on the 1.5 mile tracks and finished second at Kansas and Charlotte this season. Two of Crafton’s four career Truck Series wins have come at those types of tracks.
Defending race winner Jeb Burton is now with ThorSport and will look for his second straight win in the June race. ThorSport announced within the last few weeks that he will run the entire Truck Series schedule with the team.
The Winstar World Casino and Resort 400k will air live Friday, June 6th at 9 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1.