AVONDALE, Ariz.: Ben Rhodes has been here before.
Friday night’s CRAFTSMAN 150 at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway will see four drivers hunt a championship in one of the most competitive seasons on record.
Three drivers, Grant Enfinger, Corey Heim, and Carson Hocevar have never hoisted the Championship trophy; ThorSport Racing’s Ben Rhodes did in a thrilling Phoenix Raceway finish in 2021.
Appearing in the Championship 4 for a third consecutive year, Rhodes’s approach to Friday night’s 150-lap nailbiter is relatively calm and relaxed. The Louisville, Ky. native hopes to lean on his experience of his championship season two years ago but absorb from his defeat last season and deliver his Sandusky, Ohio-based team their second NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series championship in the last three years.
“I feel pretty good about our chances,” Rhodes said Thursday morning from Phoenix Raceway. “I’ve mentioned this before – a few different times – but I’m going to say it again because I think it’s worth noting… We’ve just been in the grind every time to get here. Every year we get into a grind just to get to this point, and I say that because other drivers have won a race to get themselves locked in early-on. We’re in a grind, we get in on a tie-breaker – just strategy and doing everything we can to fight our way into the playoffs, and we make it.
“Year after year, we’ve been doing that. I think that speaks volumes to strategy, but also the will that the team has to try to get to this point. So, I wouldn’t count us out by any means, even if we’re not doing well. Last year, we were running seventh, caution comes out and we almost win the darn thing.
“I feel good about our chances, and looking at the other drivers that are in it – not taking anything away from their programs – they have more wins than us throughout the season, but we’ve been here and done it. I just feel like if I was looking over the roster of the drivers who are outside of it and inside of it, I would have picked the ones that are in it.”
While his other Championship 4 rivals may be feeling nervous about Friday night’s race, Rhodes is hoping his laidback approach will benefit him Friday night.
“Mental advantage, for sure. But, that can only go so far,” added Rhodes. “When the green flag drops, everyone should be feeling calm. I mean, if they’re not, that’s great for me. But they should be feeling calm and relying on their equipment at that point. Still, when things get exciting, we have the experience to fall back on.
“After doing this for the third year in a row, I just feel so calm and just at peace being here. I remember the first year, I was so worked up – I was so excited, so nervous, and just wanting to do anything I could to just seize the opportunity. It took years for me to get to that point, and I didn’t want to let it pass.
“But, I was still appreciative to be there. Now, at this point, I’m grateful to be here – I’m really grateful to be here. I just feel at peace. I just feel like this is where we’re supposed to be.”
For the 23rd and final Truck Series race of the season, NASCAR has extended practice from the traditional twenty-minute session to fifty minutes, allowing teams to dial in their truck and get a good baseline for their Friday night fight.
The extra half hour will be beneficial, especially for Rhodes and his No. 99 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150, as they opted to bring a new setup to the 1.0-mile oval – looking for mere thousands of a second advantage over their Championship 4 rivals.
Luckily, if the new setup sends the team to the basement, Rhodes said they have setups from both the 2021 and 2022 seasons to revert to – which could be swapped over in as little as 10 minutes.
“It’s big for us this weekend, actually. I would tell you for most weekends, no,” explained Rhodes. “The reason why is when you’re midway through the season, and you’re working on developing new setups, packages, and new body builds, we kind of have a lot of that figured out. But, we do have a new package that we want to implement this weekend.
“We’re starting out with it. We have no experience with it. If it were a normal practice session, we would be like, ‘What do we do?’ It would be a really hard decision. So, we have ‘Ol’ Reliable’ – 2021 and 2022 – setup teed up and ready to go. We can switch over to that in probably about 10 minutes in the middle of practice. But we want to start out with what’s unknown and what we think is best, putting our best foot forward. But there are no guarantees with that. Thank goodness we have 50 minutes to figure it out.”
Should the stars align on Friday night and Rhodes is able to pull off another championship, Rhodes said it would be an honor to be a two-time Truck Series champion.
“I really haven’t thought about it a whole lot. But it is pretty humbling to think that what an honor it’d be,” sounded Rhodes. If you list out the names of two-time champions, it’s pretty crazy. I consider them monuments of men in our sport that are legendary. They’re going to go in the Hall of Fame if they aren’t already – Ron Hornaday is there. It’s just cool. But even if I did get a second championship, I really wouldn’t consider myself one of them.
“I consider them greater than me, actually. I’m really bad at that – I consider a lot of people better than me. But maybe that fuels that fire like I have something to prove. That’s always been my attitude – I focus on myself; I don’t really think about what it’d mean or what it could be. But I promise you, I’ll celebrate harder than any of them because I do recognize the grind and struggle it is to get here.
“I know what my story has been and how hard it’s been to get to this point. Every opportunity I get, I really try to make the most of it. I’ve done that more in my life, too. I try to take time to recognize things. I used to be really bad that even if we won, I’d be focused on the next race. I really didn’t celebrate or appreciate it. It’s really hard to do. You better appreciate the heck out of it. It’s not easy.”
Follow Chris Knight on X (Twitter) at @Knighter01 or email: [email protected]
