Heading into the New Year, Front Row Motorsports didn’t have an exact plan for their #38 truck. With Daytona on the horizon, they tapped Chandler Smith to help engineer a team that would be capable of competing.

That decision has more than paid off, Smith had yet to finish outside the top 10 heading into the Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. After rain cancelled practice and qualifying, Smith found himself starting third.

It wouldn’t take long for Smith to pilot his Long John Silvers Ford to the lead. As one of the first cars to hook up with the PJ1 compound on the bottom lane, he only needed nine laps to find his way around pole sitter Daniel Hemric.

Despite several restarts in the first stage, including a four car pile up more akin to an intermediate wreck, Smith dominated the first stage. It was clear that despite the lack of practice time, that #38 truck was dialed in.

After holding off Tyler Ankrum on another restart, Smith took the first stage and would become only the second stage one winner to also win the race, joining Kyle Busch who did it in 2017.

As the second stage went green, Smith’s restart prowess helped him maintain the lead early. Unlike the first, the second stage ran under mostly green flag conditions and as Smith neared lapped traffic, Bayley Curry was reeling him in.

With seven laps left in the stage, Curry maneuvered his way around Smith taking the stage and preventing the sweep. After starting 20th, Curry won his first stage of the season and led the most laps of his career in the Craftsman Truck Series.

At the end of stage two, every truck was in desperate need of new tires and fuel if they hoped to make it to the end of the race. Almost every truck headed for the pits, save for Rajah Caruth who was rebounding after being spun by Kayden Honeycutt at the start of stage two.

Caruth’s strategy paid off, being the only truck to stay out, giving him much needed track position. Despite a poor restart, Caruth gathered the lead from Curry leaving him to fend off Truck Series phenom Corey Heim on much older tires.

While Heim searched for a place to go, Caruth stayed strong on the bottom, leading for 85 laps, more than all of his laps led in the Truck Series combined until this point. As the laps wound down like petals on a flower, Caruth’s fortune landed on “loves me not.”

Needing a caution late, one never arrived in time to make his strategy successful and his 50 lap older tires eventually gave way to Heim. Smith had spent the third stage creeping up on the two leaders battling and was in perfect position to pounce on Heim late.

Mother Nature wasn’t done as some light sprinkles brought out the caution with 22 laps to go. Heim and Smith restarted on the front row, with Heim in the preferred top lane, but Smith was not going to be denied.

His truck had the restart gear in it as it shot off the bottom, briefly taking the lead away from Heim before the yellow flag flew once again for a Curry transmission issue which nearly wrecked half the field.

Now moving to the premier line on the top, Smith was going to have to stave off a Kyle Larson yet again looking to complete the triple (winning in all three NASCAR series in one weekend). Larson restarted fourth, but didn’t stay there for long, sending his #07 truck on the high side to get second off the last restart.

However, Larson saw his dreams swatted by the Long John Silver logo as Smith’s truck jumped out to an insurmountable lead. Despite a desperate last divebomb, Smith cruised his way to his first Truck Series win since 2022.

From the start of the race, Smith had the truck to beat and he was finally able to capitalize off of his fantastic start to the season. Caruth had a much needed solid finish, coming home ninth, but those laps led were more impressive than that.

Smith’s Front Row Motorsports teammate Layne Riggs rode a rollercoaster of a day to a sixth place finish. At the end of stage two, Riggs was a lap down fighting for the free pass, but recovered for another much needed top 10 finish.

The Craftsman Truck Series is sticking with short track racing heading to Rockingham next Friday, April 18 with the green flag dropping at 2:00 p.m. PST.