By: Ashley McCubbin

There has been three races for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Circuit of the Americas, with the same team victorious in each of those. Front Row Motorsports won the inaugural event with Todd Gilliland before going back-to-back with Zane Smith.

They will hope to make it four in a row with late model ace Layne Riggs behind the wheel of their No. 38 Ford F-150 this coming weekend. He started off the year rough before scoring his first top-10 of 2024 with a 10th in the most recent series event at Bristol Motor Speedway. With no previous laps at the Texas road course, it makes you wonder about his chances of making it happen. But hey, anything is possible.

With the likelihood a different driver will be victorious this time around, the options are long with a full field ready to tackle the 3.426-mile course.

Christian Eckes will hope to go two in a row after picking up the checkered flag at Bristol Motor Speedway, which marked his third top-10 in four races this season. Unfortunately, it has not gone well for him at COTA always in the past with a single top-10 – sixth in 2022 – in three appearances.

Rajah Caruth backed up his victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a solid eighth at Bristol to give him an average finish of fifth through the four events. He was decent in his first trip to COTA while running a partial campaign in 2023, placing 13th on the final running order.

Tyler Ankrum has the best average of the drivers on the entry list (4.7) with no finishes worse than seventh. He also has momentum on his side as the current points leader with an average result of 6.3.

Corey Heim is the man sitting behind him in the points, just 17 markers outside of the top spot with his sixth at Bristol being his first non top-five of the 2024 campaign. He placed sixth in his first trip to COTA in 2023.

Matt Crafton found the top-five for the first time at Bristol with a fourth, marking his third top-10 of the 2024 campaign. However, his best finish in those three races at COTA is 13th in 2022.

Ross Chastain will be making one of his allotted five appearances in the series this weekend, hoping to back up his fifth place finish from COTA last year after winning the pole.

Nick Sanchez is hopeful for a good run en route to putting the scuffle that he had post-race with Stewart Friesen in the rearview mirror, and the fact he has not scored a top-15 finish in the past two races. He will have to learn the road, though, as he has yet to run a Truck Series event at COTA.

Ty Majeski also needs a turnaround after an engine failure took him out of the event early at Bristol Motor Speedway. Before then, he had been quietly having a good season, ranked fourth in points with a pair of top-10 finishes. Recall he picked up a third in 2023 at COTA.

Taylor Gray has been quietly consistent with three straight top-10 finishes having him currently ranked seventh in the standings. He has not shown a ton of speed at COTA, though, placing 26th and 11th in his previous appearances.