The NASCAR Truck Series finale at Phoenix Raceway last year was an embarrassment to the discipline and the increased expectations for 2024 were addressed prior to the weekend by managing director Seth Kramlich.
“Yeah, I think it was valid after Phoenix,” said Nick Sanchez after winning the season opener on Friday. “That was a pretty wild race, and obviously none of us are innocent. I think it was good, and I think this was a good place to have that.
“The Truck Series could put on really good races when we’re clean, but sometimes it gets out of hand, and obviously that’s when NASCAR steps in. I think it was definitely valid. It wasn’t an ass chewing. I hate to use that word. But it definitely wasn’t an ass chewing. It was more like a warning.”
They responded by breaking the record for the most cautions in race history, 12, while doing so early and often. The crashing was bookended by massive multi-truck incidents on the fifth lap and the final lap — the latter wiping out almost everyone from third on back.
At first blush, it looked like Rajah Caruth was trying to fill the hole on the outside, drifting up into Jack Wood who turned Taylor Gray into the wall and in front of the field. Daniel Dye collided into Gray, and Gray then went airborne and upside down.
He was checked and released from the infield care center.
“I like Rajah a lot but I don’t know what he was doing,” Gray said. “Look at the replay. There’s no hole to get in. (Wood) is still at his right front. I don’t know if he was trying to stall a lane and misjudged it or what. He got (Wood) in the left rear and you all saw it from there.”
Caruth was adamant he wasn’t trying to fill a hole.
“You get tight off the corner here anyway, because handling matters more than anywhere in terms of plate tracks,” Caruth said. “Corey (Lajoie) was doing a good job of pushing me and I felt like someone was on my right rear, which made me even more tight. It’s the last lap and I hate happened. I hate to see people flying through the air and getting destroyed. Taylor is a buddy of mine.”
So that wasn’t him trying to get over?
“Not even, not even,” Caruth said. “I have white gloves so yall can see my hands. I was lifting a little bit because I didn’t want to crash people and feel like I got a bad push when I was already tight.”
Lajoie, his teammate at Spire Motorsports and a Cup Series veteran, was willing to give Caruth the benefit of the doubt but wasn’t entirely sure what happened.
“It looked like Rajah was trying to shut the door on (Wood) and fill the middle because I was going to go with him to try to get the top back going,” Lajoie said.
Does Caruth deserve the criticism he’s received afterwards?
“You’re going for it there,” Lajoie said. “But I don’t know if that was him trying to fill the middle or just him getting tight. These trucks are really really aero sensitive and it’s easy to … You saw I spun (Christian Eckes) out and I didn’t even touch him.
“They’re really aero dependent, depending on where you touch them, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, is pretty smart and knows what he’s doing “
The most frustrating part watching this race, from the drop of the green flag, is that they were pushing and shoving immediately. There were few instances of just riding and drafting. They took the green flag and immediately started bump drafting with drivers that may or may not be capable of doing it at this level yet.
Cup Series veteran Ty Dillon was involved in the fifth lap crash and said he had never experienced a superspeedway race that aggressive so early.
“It was chaos,” Dillon said. “Total craziness. You just have a lot of guys in good trucks that haven’t done this before. They’re faster and no one really drafts anymore. We don’t put rookies in a good spot to learn.
“That’s what it looked like. I’ve never seen anything like that behind the wheel, four laps into a race. From my experience, I knew something was going to happen. I got myself to the bottom and hopefully have a spot to bail and sure enough it happened.”
That was the entire point of Kramlich giving the drivers under his stead the dad talk prior to the weekend. Third year driver Dean Thompson said he’s never been a part of a meeting like that before.
“He set us all down, and I can’t remember having a meeting like that before,” Thompson said. “I don’t know. Can we change? I’m trying to change. I don’t want that to happen, right? It just takes a group to make it better and to see if we want it.”
Dye says Kramlich ‘is awesome’ and does a great job and it was a necessary conversation.
“You re-watch Phoenix and I was already crashed out early but it’s like, oh crap,” Dye said. “I talked to Seth about this before, and he told me what was going to happen, and while I wasn’t a part of any of that crap, you see it in the Truck Series a lot.
“You go to North Wilkesboro, and drivers just ship each other out of the way, because that’s what they’re doing already. It was a good talking to and his message was that it’s up to us drivers to make the Truck Series respectable again.
“He said ‘you don’t want to view the Truck Series as a demo derby in NASCAR.’ And while it is a learning step for drivers to make it to the top. We’re also in a top three division of NASCAR for a reason and we need to show it.
“We need to respect equipment. That was a million dollars in damage for the team owners. That’s going to happen but going to other places, we can do better.”
Caruth says he doesn’t expect it to get better by next week at Atlanta.
“No, no,” Caruth said. “Obviously, we had that talking to this week and look how much stuff we tore up tonight. We’re truckers. We’re going to race hard. Most of us aren’t stupid. Some of us. Not all of us.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.