Corey Heim had two consecutive wins in the 2026 Craftsman Truck Series, one at Darlington and another at Rockingham with damaged steering, and at Bristol he needed a third to complete the Triple Truck Challenge and collect an additional $350,000 on top of the $150,000 he had already earned in the first two. He recovered 18 positions in Friday night's race, passed Christian Eckes to take the lead on lap 179, and on the next lap contact with Eckes destabilized him and sent him into the outside wall. Kaden Honeycutt, his teammate at TRICON Garage, had nowhere to go and also crashed out. Christopher Bell won the Tennessee Army National Guard 250 from lap 188 onward, his first Truck Series victory since 2017, with Chandler Smith 0.330 seconds behind at the finish and Eckes, who had led the race for 132 laps, in fifth place.

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Heim out on lap 180

No driver had ever completed the three wins of "The Trip" program in the same season. The race at Rockingham the previous week had ended with the steering wheel turned 20 degrees to the right during the final four laps due to a steering issue, yet Heim still stayed ahead of Honeycutt to win. At Bristol, he started 12th in the TRICON No. 1 and worked his way forward until taking the lead on lap 179. The contact on lap 180 sent him into the wall by the right-rear quarter, and Honeycutt, who started from pole, piled in for a chain-reaction collision. Both retired under the red flag.

Eckes led 132 laps

The first stage went to Eckes, who took the lead on three separate occasions and accumulated 132 of the 250 laps out front. Bell passed him on lap 188 and held the position to the finish, except for the caution on lap 224 that bunched the trucks and allowed Smith to move into second before Bell pulled away. Eckes was out of the fight for the top positions on that same restart and finished fifth, behind Bell, Smith, Giovanni Ruggiero, and Ross Chastain.

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Bell's first Truck Series win since 2017

Stewart Friesen, owner and regular driver of the Halmar Friesen Racing No. 62, is injured. Last year Bell substituted at Watkins Glen and finished fourth. At Bristol, he drove again for the team, this time as Friesen's teammate who also started in the race, and won. His last Truck Series victory had been in 2017, when he was still climbing the ranks toward the Cup Series.

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Four drivers, four points apart

Smith reaches the top with 208 points, one ahead of Honeycutt, who could not finish the race. Heim and Layne Riggs each have 204, and Eckes is fifth with 191. In five rounds, four drivers are separated by just four points at the top of the championship.