Chandler Smith rips back into NASCAR Truck victory lane at Bristol

BRISTOL, TENN. — Chandler Smith ripped back into victory lane in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series after winning Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Smith took the lead from Corey Heim on the penultimate restart. After a caution for an incident that left Andres Perez with damage, Smith drove away from Heim and held off Kyle Larson for the win.

Smith led twice for 127 laps to claim his first Truck Series win since August 2022 at Richmond Raceway with Kyle Busch Motorsports. It is Smith’s first win with Front Row Motorsports, whom he joined after losing his NASCAR Xfinity Series ride with Joe Gibbs Racing. FRM put the deal together in November and finalized it in January.

“I’m more excited for this team than I am for myself. This group came together. We hired my crew chief three weeks before Daytona. Take that in for a second. This group just got assembled literally in January. The Good Lord works in mysterious ways. My life has been really, really crazy here recently and there were a lot of unknowns about my future going into this season. We kind of had our backs against the wall about just putting a group together at the last minute, but I wouldn’t want any different group than I’ve got behind me,” Smith said.

Kyle Larson, Corey Heim, Tyler Ankrum, Layne Riggs, Jake Garcia, Kaden Honeycutt, Rajah Caruth and Gio Ruggiero rounded out the top-10.

Larson finished second as he tried for a triple sweep of the weekend’s NASCAR races at Bristol. Larson raced with a heavy heart a day after the unexpected death of Jon Edwards, the Hendrick Motorsports public relations guru who helped tell the tale of his 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship season.

Daniel Hemric finished 13th after winning the pole. Three places back, Matt Crafton recovered to finish 16th after a pit road safety violation.

Bayley Currey won the second stage and had a fast truck. However, he finished 23rd after a transmission issue, later diagnosed as a suspension issue, late in the race.

Toni Breidinger had a solid night going until Stewart Friesen bobbled and spun her into the wall. That sent her and Friesen to 25th and 27th, respectively.

Brandon Jones and Ty Majeski ran inside the top-10 early on but didn’t make it to the end of the first stage after an incident in turn one with Frankie Muniz. Muniz, Jones and Majeski finished 31st through 33rd, out of the race.

Norm Benning and Stephen Mallozzi rounded out the field behind them.

Next up is Rockingham Speedway, next Friday at 5 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. NASCAR last raced at Rockingham in 2013.