Track: Talladega Superspeedway, 2.66-mile oval
Race: 19 of 23
Event: Talladega 250 (250.04 miles, 94 laps)
Schedule:
Saturday, Oct. 3
1:00 p.m…………..Race (FS1)
(all times ET)
Tanner Gray, No. 15 Ford Performace F-150
Tanner Gray definitely has momentum on his side heading into Saturday’s NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series (NGROTS) race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Gray has finished third in the last two consecutive races at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway in the No. 15 Ford Performance F-150.
In 18 Truck Series races to date this year, Gray has four top-five, seven top-10 finishes, has led four laps and sits 12th in the driver point standings. Of his four top-five finishes, three of them have been third-place finishes all within the last two months.
Gray heads to Talladega with some experience at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. He competed in the ARCA race there in June, but a bad spark plug wire early in the race left him two laps down in 13th place. He also got some drafting experience at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in February running both the NGROTS and ARCA Menards Series races. Crash damage left him 23rd in the Truck Series race, while an oil leak left him in 16th in the ARCA race.
The Talladega 250 from Talladega Superspeedway will be run on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 1 p.m. ET. The race will be broadcast live on FS1. The 94-lap race will be broken into three segments with stage-ending cautions on laps 20 and 40.
Gray on Talladega: “We’ve had really good runs the last two races and we need to keep working on our consistency. It’s bittersweet that we’re not in the playoffs since we would be in a pretty good situation right now. Eliminating the little mistakes I feel like I made early in the season, and at the end of the day all those little things add up into a big thing and I think that’s ultimately why we missed the playoffs.
“I’m looking forward to Talladega this weekend. The ARCA race and the Truck Series races at Daytona were a lot of fun. We got damage early in the truck race so that kind of put us behind. I got to run the ARCA car at Talladega earlier this year too. We had some problems there, so it wasn’t a lot of fun, but I’m really excited for Saturday. I think our Fords will be really good. I feel like we were pretty good at Daytona until we got that damage. I think it will kind of be a toss up and that would be a good place to sneak in a win since the playoff guys will probably be racing more conservatively.”
