NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series will be bringing their high energy tailgate party for some fun in the valley of the sun this Friday night with the running of the Lucas Oil 150. That of course would be the Phoenix International Raceway, the one mile basically flat oval, where these high powered racing trucks always seem to shine.

THE STORY BREAKDOWN

The Lucas Oil 150 could turn out to be about redemption Friday night following last week’s wreck marred season opener at Daytona. A lot of the series’ prominent drivers and teams found themselves leaving Florida in somewhat of an early season hole in terms of points standings.

Some of those season opening disappointments included drivers on the caliber of Ron Hornaday Jr, Todd Bodine, Travis Kvapil and Austin Dillon among others. Look for these drivers to seek points redemption, as well as their first win of 2011, this Friday night.

On the other side of this issue is the fact that Daytona was very kind to the series’ newcomers who are in the process of launching their NASCAR careers. While Daytona race winner Michael Waltrip and runner up Elliott Sadler put on a stunning finish that had the fans out of their seats or on the edge of their couch cushions, they are not eligible for series championship points under the terms of some recent rule changes from NASCAR.

That policy, which says drivers must officially declare which of NASCAR’s three national championships they’re racing for, has placed some young newcomers on top of the early season points standings. The new points system has placed young Clay Rogers, who finished third at Daytona, in first followed closely by Miguel Paludo.

Meanwhile Jeffrey Earnhardt, Ricky Carmichael and James Buescher are tied for third. Making this even more exciting is the fact that the new championship points configuration shows a 12 point gap between the first ten drivers going into Friday night’s race.

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It’s now apparent that NASCAR won’t be taking any action regarding the broken spoiler on Michael Waltrip’s Daytona winning race truck. When Waltrip came under the checkers the right side of the spoiler, on his Vision Aviation Racing Toyota, was virtually laying flat on the truck bed. NASCAR confiscated both ends of the spoiler and sent it to their North Carolina based Research and Development Center for official inspection.

But the morning after the race Kerry Tharp, NASCAR Public Relations Spokesman, said Waltrip’s win will stand adding “the spoiler broke, it appeared to be the failure of a part. We’re going to look at it and make any determinations past that.” Nothing has been said of the matter past that point so it’s now assumed that no news is good news.

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On the topic of Vision Aviation Racing, VAR: how stoked are these guys after winning their first ever venture in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series? Originally based in Las Vegas, this operation late last year moved to the Mooreseville-North Carolina area to make a run at NASCAR’s Truck Series. Just prior to last Christmas came an announcement that the team had merged with Billy Ballew Motorsports and would now be known as VAR. From that point the race was on to get everyone and everything ready for last week’s season opener at Daytona.

The original plan was to have Las Vegas drivers Justin Johnson and Dusty Davis in the cockpits of their Toyota Tundras. These are the same drivers who finished one-two last year in the NASCAR Whelen All American Series at the California based Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. However, the process of official certification for them to drive on a NASCAR super speedway track could not be completed in time and that led VAR to place Michael Waltrip and Aric Almirola in their trucks for the season opener at Daytona. In turn, that move led to the team’s amazing accomplishment of scoring their first series win in their first series race. That’s one of those special moments in time that is rarely seen anymore.

VAR drivers Johnson and Davis are scheduled to make their official series debut at Phoenix this Friday night. It’s a sure bet that VAR’s momentum is sky high going into the next race.

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THE RACE BREAKDOWN

The Lucas Oil 150 is 150 laps/150 miles around the Phoenix International Raceway’s one mile oval.

The track is always challenging because it’s so flat. Turns one and two are only banked 11 degrees while turns three and four are banked just nine degrees.

The race has 41 entries vying for the 36 starting berths. 15 of those entries are on the go or go home list meaning they do not have a guaranteed start in the race because they are presently outside of the top 25 in the series’ owner’s points. These teams will have to rely on qualifying speed to make the race.

The previous series’ race at Phoenix was won by Clint Bowyer last November driving a Chevrolet prepared by Kevin Harvick Inc. Bowyer will be present Friday night driving that same KHI truck, to defend his race win.

The Lucas Oil 150 will be broadcast live by the SPEED Channel with the pre race show beginning at 730 pm eastern time.

Some watched Michael Waltrip celebrate in victory lane while remembering an old colleague, friend and boss. Others asked Elliott Sadler what he could have done differently coming to the finish line.

Then there was Clay Rogers who stood back and watched it all, maybe the only one aware of the personal accomplishment he had just achieved. Rogers didn’t have people running towards him to ask him what he thought about the NextEra Energy Resources 250.

Then again, most have never heard his name before.

But heading into the second race of the Camping World Truck Series 2011 season Rogers will be in a position that everyone does know: point leader. It comes after a wild night in Daytona where the 31-year-old finished third behind Waltrip and Sadler.

“To be honest with you, my heart just dropped when you said that,” Rogers chucked afterward.

“I hadn’t even thought about that. Our plans coming into Daytona were not to compete in the full Truck Series schedule this year. We’ll have to talk to that man right there after tonight. But, you know, our team is a very small team. We’re based out of Cerro Gordo, North Carolina an hour on the other side of Rockingham. We’re definitely going to run the first five races and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

The first five races, that’s it. Nothing beats getting off to quick start and earning your career best finish and being the point leader. Sure, it may only be for a week and Rogers won’t win the championship, but it doesn’t hurt in trying to gain attention.

It might sound as though Rogers had an easy night, yet it was far from it. The driver of the No. 92 Action Gator Tire/Fleet Tire HQ.com Chevrolet for RBR Motorsports survived both problems on the track and in the pits.

It started in qualifying; Rogers had to earn his way into the race on speed. Not having been locked in the field considering his never run a full season before. In fact, Rogers only has 21 career starts that span over four seasons.

Once the race started, which would be one of attrition, Rogers didn’t look like a rookie. With six cautions for 24 laps as well as six different leaders – including Rogers – no one could exhale until the checkered flag flew.

“Our truck shut off halfway down the back straightaway and again in the middle of turns three and four coming with one to go for that restart,” said Rogers.

“We were trying to stretch mileage because I made a mistake on pit road and missed my pit stall. We were trying to overcome that. Stretch fuel miles a little bit. We were set up for qualifying. We were jetted a lot leaner than probably a large percentage of the field. We were getting better fuel mileage. I think we had enough fuel to get to the end. Riding around under caution on these high banks was making it run away from the pickup.”

It was during that pit stop where Rogers received a penalty and had to restart at the back of the field. His fuel can got stuck in the truck and when Rogers left his pit stall so did the equipment, which is a no-no.

Rogers though took it in stride and said the penalty actually saved him and turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. The reason? It put him right in front of Kyle Busch, who isn’t too shabby on the restrictor plate tracks.

The two went straight to the front of the field.

“It was really an up-and-down night, to say the least,” Rogers said afterwards.

“We weren’t a very good pusher. If we didn’t have somebody behind us, we really couldn’t go anywhere or even stay up in the pack the way we needed to. There were times in the race where Joey Coulter and a couple other guys, Michael Waltrip one time was pushing me pretty good, we could make headway then. We seemed to be a decent leader.”

Rogers continued, “Kyle [Busch] said before the restart, ‘We’ll push you on this start.’ I knew if a hole opened up, I better go with it or he was going to go with somebody else. Luckily a hole opened up off of two and we carried a huge run off the back straightaway. That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever been a part of. It was pretty wild.”

As wild as the ‘Big One’ which came out with just four laps remaining.

“At that point we didn’t have anybody behind us and had kind of fell away from the draft about 10 or 12 car lengths and had just picked up the 10 truck [Jennifer Jo Cobb] behind us,” he said.

“That’s when all chaos broke loose there. We were fortunate to have enough time to get slowed down and pick our way through there. It was a couple close calls, especially with the 3 truck [Austin Dillon]. Almost centered him. Luckily, once again, there were several times tonight in our race that things that looked horrible, ended up benefitting us in the end. I guess luck played a large part in it as well.”

Yes, Clay Rogers stood there and watched everyone else run off toward other drivers and potential stories. To some, including himself, he was just lucky. Sometimes though it’s better to be lucky than good. And if Rogers can continue to gain experience in the series he’ll end up being both one day.

But for now, he’ll quietly enjoy being the CWTS point leader that no one knows.