THOMPSON MATCHES CAREER-BEST TO LEAD TOYOTA AT CHARLOTTE
Thompson closes the gap on the provisional Playoff field with his fourth top-10 finish
CONCORD, NC (May 24, 2025) – Dean Thompson matched his career-best finish of sixth to lead Toyota at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday evening. Thompson ran in the top-15 most of the race before a great strategy call boosted Thompson up the running order.
The sixth-place run is a track-best result for Sam Hunt Racing and matches the California-native’s best result from Martinsville earlier this year. With the finish, Thompson is now just 42 points out of the Playoff field.
Toyota GAZOO Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS)
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Race 13 of 33 – 300 miles, 200 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, William Bryon*
2nd, Connor Zilisch*
3rd, Nick Sanchez*
4th, Justin Allgaier*
5th, Sammy Smith*
6th, DEAN THOMPSON
16th, WILLIAM SAWALICH
20th, BRANDON JONES
24th, CHASE BRISCOE
31st, TAYLOR GRAY
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
DEAN THOMPSON, No. 26 Thompson Pipe Group Toyota GR Supra, Sam Hunt Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
You tied your career-best. Can you tell us about your run today?
“Yeah, my guys put together a really good Thompson Pipe Group Toyota GR Supra. I feel like this track really suits me well. We didn’t have a great practice or a great qualifying effort, but I knew we had good long run speed, so we kind of played into that. Just minded our p’s and q’s on the restarts and the long runs and just kind of played out really well for us in the end.”
Another top-10 run. Do you feel like you are gaining on it?
“Yeah, I feel like the team is really making good improvements on making the car faster. I’m just the lucky one that gets to drive it. I think we are making a lot of great improvements.”
Can you talk about your car on the long run versus all of the restarts there at the end?
“We had a really good long run Thompson Pipe Group Supra. We didn’t have a great practice or a great qualifying, but I knew our long run speed was significantly better than our short run speed. We just kind of played into that, minded our p’s and q’s and picked them off on restarts and the long runs. Ended up with a really good result. Glad we ran well. My team did a really good job. My crew chief (Kris Bowen) is way smarter than I am, because I wanted to pit and he didn’t, and we ended up with a pretty good result.”
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