With an eighth-place finish in the Clean Harbors 250 at Richmond Raceway, the final regular-season event on the 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series schedule, Daniel Dye claimed the final transfer spot into this year’s Playoffs by a mere margin over Tanner Gray and will race for his first series’ championship two weeks from now.
Dye, a 20-year-old native from DeLand, Florida, came into the regular-season finale at Richmond trailing Gray by five points after he previously finished 29th at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in mid-July compared to Gray’s 20th-place result. Ironically, Dye’s deficit at Indianapolis occurred after the Floridian was a single point above Gray for the final transfer spot into the Playoffs after Dye finished three spots ahead of the New Mexican native at Pocono Raceway in 16th place.
During the regular-season finale weekend at Richmond, Dye struck first by qualifying in 13th place while Gray lined up in 26th place on the starting grid. For the majority of the event, Dye was running within the top 10 and he proceeded to finish sixth in the first stage period and third in the second stage period. With his results, he garnered a total of 13 stage points while Gray collected none as he and his No. 15 Operation 300 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro team were mired outside the top 20 on the track.
Then despite losing a bevy of spots during a pit stop amid a late-race caution period with 26 laps remaining, which allowed Gray, who was a lap down earlier, to narrow the deficit back down to a single point, Dye used four fresh tires to carve his way back to the front while Gray, whose fresh tires was beginning to wear, slid backward after he restarted within the top-12 mark.
Following the final restart period with eight laps remaining, Dye powered his No. 43 Champion Container Chevrolet Silverado RST across the finish line in eighth place for his sixth top-10 result of the 2024 season. When all was said and done, Dye emerged with the 10th and final transfer spot into the 2024 Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs as Gray could only march his way up to 12th place in the final running order, which was enough for Dye to overtake him in the standings and left Gray on the outside looking in.
With his accomplishment, Dye, who is competing in his first season with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing and notched a career-best runner-up result at Nashville Superspeedway in June that kept him within striking distance of making the Playoffs, became the first competitor to rally from a deficit to jump above the Playoff cutline during the series’ regular-season finale. He joins the 2024 Truck Series regular-season champion Christian Eckes and Tyler Ankrum as one of three McAnally-Hilgemann Racing competitors who will contend for this year’s drivers’ title. Dye also joins Rajah Caruth and Taylor Gray as newcomers to the Truck Series Playoffs.
Amid his success at Richmond, Dye evoked his game plan on remaining focused on his own goal and garnering as many points as possible that enabled him to make the Playoffs as he enters a seven-race postseason stretch to the championship seeded in 10th place in the Playoff standings with 2,001 points and trailing points leader Corey Heim by 40 points.
“I said earlier in the week, I really didn’t want to know what was going on with everybody else,” Dye said. “As soon as you start playing defense, you kind of get in the way of your potential. So no, after we got quite a bit of stage points to get a swell, I started thinking about it a little bit more so we maybe didn’t have to be as aggressive, but no, I asked one question the whole time. Then it’s just, when you’re behind, you’ve got to be on offense. If you’re in by 15 or 20 [points] coming into the race, maybe play a little defense, but when you’re out by five, you’ve got to go to work.”
Amid Dye’s relief, Tanner Gray was left disappointed on pit road after having an up-and-down season, similar to Dye’s, resulting in the New Mexican being the first competitor that was scored outside of the Playoff cutline. For this season, Gray joins teammate Dean Thompson as the only two full-time TRICON Garage competitors who will not contend for this year’s title while Gray’s younger brother, Taylor, and Corey Heim will after the latter two made the Playoffs.
Gray, the 2018 NHRA Pro Stock champion who is campaigning in his fifth full-time season in the Truck Series, took note of the inconsistent results he garnered throughout this season along with the on-track issues at Richmond that resulted in him missing his first opportunity to make his first series’ Playoffs.
“We just weren’t good enough all day,” Tanner Gray said. “We just didn’t have the speed, didn’t have the balance and I didn’t do a good enough job. Really frustrated. When you come into a race where you’re on the cut like this, you just got to be better. We weren’t tonight. Congrats to Daniel [Dye]. They were better and they were better coming down the stretch when it mattered. We just made too many mistakes overall throughout the season. Just too sloppy, so we got to clean it up and I got to clean up a lot of things on my end.”
Daniel Dye’s 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoff run commences at The Milwaukee Mile for the LiUNA! 175 on August 25, with the event’s broadcast time to commence at 4 p.m. ET on FS1.
