Four takeaways from the NASCAR Gander Outdoor Truck Series at Daytona

The Truck Series returned to Daytona International Speedway this past weekend for its annual running of the NextEra  Energy Resources 250. As usual, the action didn’t disappoint and it was quite possibl, the best race of the whole week.

1. Hattori Continues Truck Series Dominance/Starts Season On Right Track – Many people wondered what Hattori Racing would look like this season when the defending champion from that team didn’t have a ride for 2019 and wasn’t coming back. Insert Austin Hill who previously drove for Young’s Motorsports in previous races and had just 52 starts before he entered victory lane Friday night for the first time in the Truck Series. It seemed Hattori has made the right choice so far and it’ll be interesting to keep track if they continue their winning ways in 2019.
2. Truck Series Best Race Of The Week – While it certainly was a wreckfest, the Truck Series was the best race of the week, as it had multiple lead changes and some exciting moves to increase your heart rate. There was side-by-side racing throughout the majority of the race. While only nine trucks finished on the lead lap and we had multiple big ones, it was still a great race aside from what we saw in the other series this past week.
3. Angela Ruch Gets Top 10 Finish In Truck Series Return – While only nine trucks finished the race and she may get some backlash from fans that she got lucky, you should give credit where credit is due. Ruch avoided every wreck and found herself at the end for contention. However, handling issues with the truck prevented her from getting up there and challenging for the win. But what ifs come to mind. What if she didn’t have those handling issues? If she didn’t, then maybe we would be talking about a different story. But as the old saying goes, if wishes were fishes, the world would be an ocean.
4. Drivers Get Career Night In Daytona – Daytona and yes Talladega is always the place for upsets, excitement, and good finishes. As a result, many drivers had a career night. Ross Chastain got his first top five after almost five years in the Truck Series, Josh Reaume got his first ever top-five finish, and Spencer Boyd earned his first top-five finish as well. Among the others was Bobby Gerhart despite a wrecked truck, Clay Greenfield, and Cory Roper who was running in the top five and was the underdog story before, unfortunately wrecking by himself .