This Saturday’s CarShield 200 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (10 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) marks the third and final leg of the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series’ inaugural Triple Truck Challenge. Last week’s race winner Brett Moffitt and his GMS Racing team are eligible for a $150,000 bonus should he win again this week at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. A $50,000 incentive awaits a first-time winner.
As is so often the case in this series, there is plenty of dramatic opportunities. Not only does Moffitt stand to win the big paycheck, but another victory would make him the first multi-time winner among series regulars. John Hunter Nemechek is the only driver to win at Iowa and Gateway consecutively, doing so in 2017.
Certainly, a new race winner will emerge with no former Gateway winners entered. Last year’s runner-up Todd Gilliland is hoping that’s promising news for him. The 19-year-old finished runner-up to Justin Haley by 0.753-second. And the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver is so eager to earn his first series win and has turned in a solid season effort. He has three top-10 finishes in the last four races and won the pole position and led a season-best 31 laps at Texas. His best showing in 2019 is third at Kansas.
Gilliland’s KBM teammate Harrison Burton, meanwhile, is in fine shape toward a Sunoco Rookie of the Year crown. The son of former Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Jeff Burton, brings a on a streak of five consecutive top-10 finishes and is coming off a career best of third place at Iowa – a mark he equaled at Dover earlier this season. He’s only led two laps in the No. 18 KBM Toyota Tundra – one at Atlanta and one at Dover.
For the second consecutive week, Gilliland and Burton will have ARCA Menards Series star Chandler Smith as a teammate in the truck race. The 16-year-old Smith led 55 laps from the pole position last week at Iowa and finished eighth. And that was only hours AFTER had he won his second ARCA Menards Series race on the season (fourth in his career.)
Source: Holly Cain | NASCAR Wire Service
