TRUCKS: Chandler Smith Tops Kyle Larson For First Win of 2025 Season

BRISTOL, TENNESSEE - APRIL 11: Chandler Smith, driver of the #38 QuickTie Ford, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 11, 2025 in Bristol, Tennessee. | Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Chandler Smith dominated Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on his path to his first win of the season, but it was a perfectly timed caution on Lap 237, which handed the lead to the Front Row Motorsports driver for the final time in the race.

Smith, who led the race on two occasions for a race-high 127 laps, was awarded the race lead as he was narrowly ahead of Corey Heim at the time of caution, and on the ensuing restart, with seven laps to go Smith was able to hold off all challengers for his sixth career NASCAR Truck Series win, and first since moving to Front Row Motorsports in the offseason.

RESULTS: Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol

💰🏆⚔️ $50k in the bank for @CSmith_Racing tonight!

Your Bristol winner talks with @JoshRSims. #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/CyqditalXi

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 12, 2025

"I'm more excited for this team than I am for myself," Smith exclaimed in his post-race victory interview on FS1. "This group came together, we hired my crew chief like three weeks before Daytona, just take that in for a second, this group just got assembled literally in January," Smith told Josh Sims post-race."

Smith, a native of Talking Rock, GA, would hold off 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson for the win by a margin of 0.934 seconds. After spending the majority of the offseason unsure about his 2025 racing plans, Smith was proud to collect a race win on Friday night, and he feels ultimately, he landed with the strongest team imaginable after his nerve-racking offseason.

"My life has been really, really crazy here recently and there was a lot of unknowns about my future going into this season and we kind of had our backs against the wall about putting a group together last-minute, but holy s--t, I wouldn't want any other group than I got behind me," Smith stated.

With the win, Smith also collected a $50,000 bonus as Friday night's race was part of the Craftsman Triple Truck Challenge, a program known affectionately as "The Trip".

Larson was piloting the No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado in an attempt to complete a three-race weekend sweep at Bristol Motor Speedway. While the potential weekend sweep was over before it really had a chance to begin, Larson competed admirably as he rebounded from a late-race speeding penalty on pit road to come home in the runner-up spot. Incredibly, Larson actually chalked the speeding penalty up as a benefit to his race.

"Honestly, that probably helped us because then we were still kind of buried for the next caution, and we pitted so we had a little bit of an advantage to get towards the front," Larson explained. "I thought it would be a little more of an advantage than it was, but still I think it was a benefit to our race. I felt like if we didn't get that one caution there as we were all kind of in traffic and getting ready to race, I maybe would've had a good shot. But still to get to second is good."

While he didn't win the race, Larson turned the Xfinity Fastest Lap of the race with a 15.381 second lap time on Lap 246. That lap will result in an additional owner championship point for the No. 07 Spire Motorsports team, which is running with an all-star rotation of drivers this season.

Remembering our friend Jon Edwards. pic.twitter.com/44EQQoY5mz

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 12, 2025

Larson, who is racing with a heavy heart after the tragic passing of his public relations representative Jon Edwards this week, will look to pick up wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday driving the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports entry, and the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday driving the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Heim, who lost the lead due to a questionable caution call late in the race, would finish a disappointing third, but with the solid outing, maintains the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series point lead. Heim will exit Bristol with an 18-point advantage on Smith, the race winner, who jumped from third to second in the standings with the win.

Tyler Ankrum, and Ben Rhodes would round out the top-five finishers in the race.

Ty Majeski, one of the best short track racers in the world, would see his race end in a disappointing 33rd-place finish following being swept up in a multi-truck crash on Lap 53, which was triggered by Frankie Muniz, a competitor who was a lap down.

Big trouble involving Ty Majeski and Frankie Muniz early tonight in Bristol. Here's what happened:#NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/nGXdFP8Ce0

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 12, 2025

After being evaluated and released from the infield care center, Majeski spoke about the situation that Muniz found himself in as the lead lap trucks were bearing down on him.

"It's a tough spot. Obviously, he's got his own race out there too, so, you can't, hey, get out of our way. That's not right either. But I think if there was just a little more predictability in what some of these guys are going to do as lapped trucks," Majeski explained. "[Muniz] was talking earlier in the year that he wanted to earn all of our respect. We're not asking you to get out of our way, we're asking you to be predictable in where you're going to be in the next corner."

Due to the rough finish, Majeski dropped from second to third in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular season standings, and now sits 57 points behind Heim.

The tough break of the award on the night has to go to Bayley Currey, who captured his first-ever Stage Win in Stage 2 of Friday night's race. Currey was inside the top-five in the closing laps, when his transmission broke on the next-to-last restart of the race.

A tough break for Bayley Currey. His night ends with 11 to go after winning Stage 2 in Bristol. #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/zoGStFqnrH

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 12, 2025

Currey would finish the race in 23rd, 13 laps off the pace.

Next up for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a trip to Rockingham Speedway, which will host its first NASCAR National Series events since the 2013 season next weekend. The Black's Tire 200 at Rockingham is scheduled for Friday, April 18 and will be televised on FS1 with coverage kicking off at 5:00 PM ET.