{"id":10135,"date":"2026-07-19T02:18:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=10135"},"modified":"2026-07-19T02:18:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:18:26","slug":"smith-trending-in-right-direction-in-nascar-truck-series-title-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=10135","title":{"rendered":"Smith trending in right direction in NASCAR Truck Series title fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ic-cdn.flipboard.com\/yardbarker.com\/6798e300198616f5d0fad1d0416dbcbe3718e7a6\/_xlarge.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nascar\/players\/chandler_smith\/927608\" target=\"_blank\">Chandler Smith<\/a> isn&#8217;t sure if he&#8217;s being overlooked as a championship contender in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nascar\" target=\"_blank\">NASCAR\u00a0<\/a>Craftsman Truck Series, but it&#8217;s clear the 24-year-old driver from Talking Rock, Ga., is capable of winning on any given week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That was evidenced by Smith leading 105 of 250 laps in Saturday&#8217;s Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro and winning by over 8.2 seconds, the largest margin of victory ever in a Truck Series short track race.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smith is third in the series standings with three races left in the Truck Series regular season and in a prime position to challenge his Front Row Motorsports teammate in Layne Riggs and Kaden Honeycutt for the title this fall.<\/p>\n<h2>Is Chandler Smith a title threat?<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I personally feel like we&#8217;re a championship-caliber team,&#8221; Smith said in his post-race news conference. &#8220;We went through a rut. Charlotte [30th-place finish] was induced by me. Went to Nashville, was extremely good, went to Michigan, was pretty good, then had two back-to-back races at San Diego and Lime Rock where we finished [22nd and 30th].<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Points kind of don&#8217;t tell the full story, but truthfully, this 38 team&#8217;s been strong. The only race I can even think back on this year that we haven&#8217;t been lights out was Dover. The 38 team&#8217;s been firing on all eight cylinders, it&#8217;s just a matter of if it&#8217;s going to be a good day or not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Smith is only in his second season as the driver of a No. 38 truck that is a part of team that was essentially thrown together at the last minute prior to the 2025 season. That&#8217;s a much different situation than that of Riggs&#8217; No. 34 group, which has been together for three seasons, and Honeycutt&#8217;s No. 11 team at TRICON Garage, which won the 2025 championship with Corey Heim.\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;This is year two of our team being together,&#8221; Smith said. &#8220;Our growth and our progression from last year to this year is definitely reflected. Our race trucks are better than last year. Our pit crew&#8217;s been doing a little bit better. We&#8217;re trending in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The 11 team&#8217;s been around since Corey went to TRICON [in 2023]. Look how long it took for them to get as dominant as they were last year. It takes time to build championship-caliber teams to where it&#8217;s in and out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\">\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chandler Smith isn&#8217;t sure if he&#8217;s being overlooked as a championship contender in the NASCAR\u00a0Craftsman Truck Series, but it&#8217;s clear the 24-year-old driver from Talking Rock, Ga., is capable of winning on any given week.\u00a0 That was evidenced by Smith leading 105 of 250 laps in Saturday&#8217;s Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro and winning&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/media\/4\/4\/44a6ebe0fdd596e87a5e45a11cac47165d11fbd4\/thumb_16x9\/smith-trending-right-direction-nascar-truck.jpg?v=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}