ROCKINGHAM
Friday, April 18 — NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, 5 p.m. ET (FS1)
Saturday, April 19 — NASCAR Xfinity Series, 4 p.m. ET (CW)
NASCAR returns to its roots as Rockingham Speedway is back on the schedule for the first time since 2012, hosting the NASCAR Craftsman Truck and NASCAR Xfinity Series this weekend. Ford enters with the most wins at the track in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and is coming off its first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win of the year after Chander Smith went to Victory Lane in Bristol.
FORD FIRST AT ROCKINGHAM
Thanks to Mark Martin, Ford has won more NASCAR Xfinity Series races at Rockingham Speedway than any other manufacturer. The NASCAR Hall of Famer is the all-time series leader with 11 victories at the track, including three season sweeps (1993, ‘96, ‘97). Ford has 14 wins overall, which is five more than Chevrolet and seven more than Pontiac. Chad Little, Jeff Burton and Jason Keller are the other Ford drivers to win a series race at Rockingham.
SMITH GOING FOR TWO IN A ROW
Ford got its first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory last weekend when Chandler Smith passed Corey Heim with 14 laps to go and won at Bristol Motor Speedway. Smith, who survived two late-race restarts to win his first race with Ford, gave Front Row Motorsports its 11th all-time series win. Smith is the only driver to finish in the top 10 of all six races and goes into Saturday’s scheduled race second in the point standings.
SHELDON CREED: “I think for someone that’s been a NASCAR fan for a long time, it’s probably really cool to see NASCAR go back there. For me, my first time driving in when we went to go test felt like I was driving into this scene from Days of Thunder. That’s literally what it feels like.”
LAYNE RIGGS: “At Rockingham, I think it’s gonna be a typical repave. I think it’s gonna be the same kind of way that you ran North Wilkesboro – everybody runs the bottom all day long, all practice, all qualifying. One person is gonna find speed on the top and then everybody is gonna migrate to the top and just kind of build a cushion and everybody is gonna run the top. I mean, every place finally has to be repaved. We don’t really like to see it. Drivers like to see characteristics in a track and tire wear, but sometimes it just gets a little too egregious, so it’s gonna struggle a little bit to start, but that’s any repave on a racetrack. I think it will be a little one-grooved, either one-grooved on the bottom or one-grooved on the top and hoping we qualify good and stay in front of everybody. That’s the plan.”
ALL GROWN UP
The last NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Rockingham Speedway was 2004 and most of the Ford drivers who will be competing in the race this weekend were kids. In the case of Sam Mayer, he was just an infant and almost eight months old on the date of that last race. Harrison Burton was only four and Sheldon Creed seven at the time, but all three will be leading Ford on Saturday. Veteran Ryan Sieg, who was 17 the last time the series raced at The Rock, is coming off a Ford-best seventh-place finish last week in Bristol. That marked his fourth top-10 finish of the year and kept him ninth in the overall point standings.
THIRD TIME A CHARM?
This will mark the third time Rockingham Speedway has hosted a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race with the previous two coming in 2012 and 2013. Ford is still in search of its first win, but two drivers competing this weekend participated in both of those events. ThorSport Racing’s Matt Crafton led 40 laps in the debut race before finishing third and followed that up with a sixth-place run the following year. Another current driver who was in both races was Ryan Sieg, who registered back-to-back 22nd-place efforts.
FORD’S NASCAR Xfinity Series WINNERS
AT ROCKINGHAM
1988 – Mark Martin (1)
1992 – Mark Martin (2)
1993 – Mark Martin (Sweep)
1994 – Mark Martin (2)
1995 – Chad Little (1)
1996 – Mark Martin (Sweep)
1997 – Mark Martin (Sweep)
1999 – Jeff Burton (1) and Mark Martin (2)
2000 – Mark Martin (1)
2002 – Jason Keller (1)
