With the Playoff field in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series set to be cut from 10 drivers to eight at Kansas Speedway, four of the spots in the Round of 8 already have been clinched entering Friday night’s Kansas Lottery 200 (9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Grant Enfinger and Ty Majeski have advanced on wins in the first two races of the Round of 10. Corey Heim and Christian Eckes have advanced on points. That leaves six drivers to battle for the remaining four berths, and Carson Hocevar is all but certain to claim one of them—needing just two points to move on, no matter who wins the race.
Most vulnerable are Matt DiBenedetto in 10th and 2021 champion Ben Rhodes in ninth. DiBenedetto is 19 points behind rookie Nick Sanchez in eighth, with Rhodes trailing Sanchez by a mere three points. Seventh-place Matt Crafton has a nine-point edge over Rhodes, his ThorSport Racing teammate.
Rhodes can draw on experience from his 2021 championship season, where he also had to survive a close call with elimination in the early rounds.
“I remember vividly racing at Bristol in 2021, and we were below the cut line and we were racing for, what felt like, our lives,” Rhodes told the NASCAR Wire Service. “I watch the other guys, but I don’t really want updates on where they are. I physically or mentally know where they are, whether I see the scoreboard myself, or I’m keeping track of them in my mirror or in my sights.
“I’m kind of doing mental math the whole race, and maybe at the very end, in the last 10 or 20 laps, I’ll ask for an update. That will give me an idea of, ‘Hey, this is all or nothing,’ or what I have to do. It gives me an idea of how to frame everything at the end of the race. If I need to frame it up as, ‘All right, I need to do everything I can to keep this guy behind me,’ or ‘I just need to be five spots ahead of them,’ whatever it is, it gives me an idea of how I have to work.
“So all in all, I try to keep an eye out for myself, but I’ll ask at the end. It gets complicated, and you have so much going on in the race truck where worrying about that too early can make things worse for yourself.”
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
