Smith beats Bristol to win $50,000 Triple Truck Challenge

The Weather Guard Truck Race held this Friday, April 11 at Bristol Motor Speedway was dominated by Chandler Smith, who piloted his #38 Ford F-150 to victory after holding off Kyle Larson over the final seven laps.

The Front Row Motorsports driver crossed the finish line 0.934 seconds ahead of Larson, securing his sixth career series win and second at the Tennessee oval. This victory also earned Smith the $50,000 bonus from the Triple Truck Challenge program.

"I'm so proud of my entire team. This group came together just weeks before the season opener at Daytona, with Jon Leonard joining as crew chief at the very last moment."

A last-minute team formation

Smith reflected on the challenges before the season: "We faced difficult circumstances and there were doubts about my participation until the final hour. We assembled everything under extreme time pressure, but I wouldn't trade any member of this team."

The decisive seven laps

The race turned when Smith overtook Corey Heim just before a caution on lap 237 caused by Andres Pérez's incident in the backstretch. This gave Smith lane choice for the final restart on lap 244.

Larson, who had struggled with handling during Stage 2 and served a pit road speeding penalty, had tires 27 laps fresher than Smith's for the final restart but could only advance to second position.

"We lost performance in the second stage and the truck became a handful. The speeding penalty hurt us, though the extra pit stop for tires ultimately helped. I expected the tire advantage to be bigger, but second place is still a good result."

Race statistics and analysis

Smith demonstrated dominance by leading 127 of 250 laps (50.8% of the race) across two different segments. Rajah Caruth led 85 consecutive laps on an alternate strategy, while Heim paced the field twice for 16 laps. The remaining laps were split between Bayley Currey (14) and Daniel Hemric (8).

The event saw 8 caution periods for 66 laps (26.4% of the race) with an average speed of 72.32 mph, completing the distance in 1 hour, 50 minutes and 33 seconds.

Tyler Ankrum and Ben Rhodes rounded out the top five, while Stage 2 winner Currey retired with mechanical issues 13 laps from the finish.

Heim maintains championship lead

While Smith closed the points gap, Heim retains the series lead by 18 points. Defending champion Ty Majeski remains third (-57 points) after being involved in a lap 53 crash with Frankie Muniz, Stewart Friesen and Brandon Jones.