The 2022 Camping World Truck Series returns this week for the short track portion of the 2022 NASCAR season. It’s hard to believe this is just the fifth race on the Truck Series schedule, but after this week, there will only be 11 races left in the regular season before the Trucks start their playoff schedule in late July. Zane Smith has won two of the first four races this year. He’s seemingly stepped into the 38-truck, vacated by Todd Gilliland, and turned himself into a viable contender. Does he get his third win of the season at a track he dominated last year?

Martinsville Speedway is a special track for DFS and it’s even more important for the drivers running to win as the winner takes home a massive grandfather clock. Martinsville is also well known as the shortest track on the schedule at just 0.526 miles in length. We get roughly 12 degrees of banking in the turns, but the straightaways are pretty damn flat. Track position will be key, similar to last weekend at Richmond for the Xfinity and Cup Series. But losing a lap at Martinsville isn’t as much of a death sentence as it is for Richmond. With pit strategies/cycling and cautions you can make up ground here. However, pit road penalties could be costly late in the race.

Cautions have played a significant role here in the last few Truck races. In each of the last three Martinsville races we’ve seen at least ten cautions for 80 laps. The Trucks only run 200 laps here for just over 105 miles, so we’re potentially looking at a race that’s run under yellow quite a bit. Previously, they used to run 250 laps, but NASCAR is cutting down on the total laps for the Spring races. Come back in the Fall if you’re seeking a longer race. The issue with cautions is that Martinsville is so short and flat, with almost no room for error, and no run off. So even the simplest spin, a vehicle that dies on the track, or debris will bring out a caution because it’s a hazard for the rest of the drivers. So, with 200 laps we’re looking at 140 dominator points but if we get an abundance of cautions and another race where 50-60 laps are under yellow, we’ll miss out on fastest laps. So I think it’s safe to assume we’ll likely get 110-125 dominator points. And that’s still plenty to work with.

 

As I mentioned earlier, track position and staying on the lead lap are pretty important, but no need to panic if you find your driver down a lap or two early on. Laps click off very fast at Martinsville given the size of the track. However, at the start of the race you’ll see that the front row can quickly come up on the back of the field. When we go green the leaders will basically be a half-lap from the last row and they could lap them multiple times in the first stage.

We get a bit of a wonky schedule this week with all series running and no races on Sunday. Basically, NASCAR doesn’t want to compete with the 2022 Masters Tournament for ratings. Can you blame them? They shifted the schedule ahead by one day. So the Trucks run Thursday night, Xfinity on Friday night, and the Cup Series will be under the lights on Saturday (where they’ll still be competing with UFC 273). The Truck schedule is as follows on Thursday:

  • Practice – 3:00pm ET
  • Qualifying – 3:30pm ET
  • Race – 8:00pm ET

I will be at work during practice and qualifying, but will still do my best to have practice notes and updates in red following P&Q. As always feel free to tag me in Discord if you have any questions.

Tuesday Night Update: So DraftKings dropped prices early this week because the Trucks race Thursday night and the contests are AWFUL. I already made my reservations for the Happy Hour, but I don’t know how much else I’ll play. Cash contests will be flooded with nearly identical Kyle Busch lines and even the Chrome Horn contest isn’t that appealing, nor are the single-entry contests. The Trucks are certainly suffering at the expense of The Masters and MLB, but we push forward prepping for Thursday’s race.

Driver Pool

The driver pool is a little shallow. But it’s rare I can publish a Playbook as far in advance for a race as this week. So I’ve got 14 drivers written up below, but will aim to add more based on Thursday afternoon’s practice and qualifying session. You can absolutely hit me up in the Discord if you have questions regarding some drivers not mentioned so do not be shy this week. Let’s crush the Paperclip.

Kyle Busch ($15,000) – Honestly, I think this price tag is a little too cheap for KB this week. Let’s consider the kind of monstrous performances he’s had here. He’s run Martinsville in the Truck Series a handful of times in his career but only twice in the last six years. He won his last two races here in dominant fashion leading 173 laps with 74 fastest laps in 2019 (122.55 points based on current DK scoring) and 123 laps led with 41 fastest laps (95.2 points based on current DK scoring) back in 2016. The competition on Thursday will be pretty stiff, but even $15K seems too cheap at a track with so many dominator points available. No matter where he starts he’ll likely be 80+% owned in Cash games and probably 55% owned in GPP’s. If you’re making a KB lineup, at this price tag you almost have to build the lineup with the thought in mind that he’s the lone dominator. It’s not impossible but it becomes difficult with your salary to try and build a lineup with KB and another dominator.

John Hunter Nemechek ($12,000) – It has not been an easy season for JHN. Honestly, he’s had more success at Xfinity where he’s been on a part-time schedule with Joe Gibbs Racing. JHN’s last win in this series came in June of last year at Pocono, and this track almost cost him a shot in the Championship race when he wrecked early in stage three after having a top five ride through the first two stages. But if we’re looking at track history, he’s done great here in far less equipment. He won this race four years ago driving for his family’s old team and he has a few other finishes in the top three as well. The 4-truck for Kyle Busch Motorsports is still one of the best rides in the field and he’s a great play on paper. But at his price tag, you’ll be paying for him to get some dominator points as well.

Zane Smith ($11,400) – A pretty obvious mention here. He’s won twice this year and he won this race in 2021 while finishing third in 2020. He led 20 laps in 2020 with a dozen fastest laps and elevated that to 65 laps led in 2021 with 17 fastest laps. Gateway isn’t a similar track to Martinsville in terms of size and shape, but it’s another flat track with similar banking. At that track Smith finish fifth and seventh in 2019 and 2020 before a mechanical issue took him out of the running in 2021. He will certainly be popular in some of my non-KB lines on Thursday.

Ben Rhodes ($10,800) – I don’t want to write up all the expensive guys because where’s the fun in that? But Rhodes jumps off the page as a dark horse for me this week. Which is a bit of a surprise because he’s the defending champion in this series. He has three finishes in the top four, but no wins yet in 2022. In this range, I’ll also be mixing Grant Enfinger into some of my lineups, but I prefer Rhodes based on recent form and the decent finishes here. That’s not to take anything away from Enfinger because he does have a win here. I think Rhodes is a safer option. Rhodes has finished second at Martinsville twice and he led 134 laps here four years ago.

William Byron ($9,800) – I know I mentioned a discount on Kyle Busch, but the biggest discount could arguably be on Williams Byron. $9,800 is about where he should be priced for the Cup Series, but he’s running the Truck race Thursday night and he’s only the seventh-most expensive driver on the board? Sign me up! Byron’s run Martinsville at the Cup level plenty of times over the last few years and he has decent success, just no wins. He had a pair of top five finishes at the Paperclip back in 2021. Byron will be in the 7-Truck for Spire Motorsports, but the equipment should be perfectly fine if SHR is setting up the ride. Alex Bowman finished 25th at COTA in this ride but he had an average running position of 7th and he had the eighth-best driver rating as well. 

Matt Crafton ($9,200) – Crafton’s a safe play. I typically like to target veterans at Martinsville because this can be a tough track on rookies. It’s easy for veterans to bully and push younger drivers out of the way to improve their own track position and Crafton has plenty of experience here. He’s raced at Martinsville 38 times in his career with two wins, 22 top ten’s, and 11 top five’s. Most notably he’s scored back-to-back top five finishes in the last two races. It could be the case that Crafton is finally seeing the performance decline because of his age (he turns 46 in June), but I still think he can be relied on. He finished outside the top 20 at Daytona and Atlanta, but those are tracks that are a little more chaotic and unpredictable with drafting. Most recently he finished 13th at COTA and 7th at Vegas. Those are okay results, but I like him to get a strong result Thursday night.

Parker Kligerman ($8,200) – Kligerman’s a little bit cheaper than we normally get for him considering there are so many drivers priced up for Thursday’s race. He’s about on par with what we can consider the average price tag. Kligerman can be a gem anytime he races in the Truck Series. In the Fall race last year at the Paperclip he started P30 and finished sixth in this same truck. He’s not completely safe though, but he’s shown at a variety of tracks he can move up through the field and gain PD so long as he qualifies poorly. But truthfully, even if he starts top 12, I don’t hate the play from a GPP perspective since roughly 40 points in a solid finish would deliver value.

Tanner Gray ($7,600) – Both Tanner and Taylor Gray are pretty affordable and easy to fit in with whoever you target as your dominator(s). Gray recorded his career-best finish at Martinsville with a P3 finish last Fall. Aside from that he’s finished 31st (DVP) in 2020 and 20th in 2019. Overall, he’s having a very strong year with four top 20 finishes including three top eight finishes. For what it’s worth, Taylor finished eighth here in his debut at Martinsville last Fall and obviously depending on how he looks in practice you can certainly upgrade him.

Johnny Sauter ($7,500) – Look… I get it. I know he’s been awful the past two years anytime I mention him in the Truck Playbook. But he’s on this weird part-time schedule between ThorSport and Glory 2 God Racing. But Thursday night he’ll be back in the 13-Truck for ThorSport and that instantly means he’s in a ride that’s better than most of the field. He’s won here four times in his career with an average finish of 12.65 in 26 career races. He’s finished in the top ten here 14 times. And we have practice and qualifying so based on that we’ll know if the Truck shows up with speed and if he’s a guy we can look to for PD or possibly a good finish. I like him for the same reasons I like Crafton. He’s a veteran with plenty of experience and he’s the kind of guy with a short temper who you don’t want to piss off at this track. He’s below the average price tag for a guy with four wins here, so let’s at least see how he looks in practice and where he qualifies.

Chase Purdy ($6,800) – This is more of a “recent form” recommendation. Purdy’s run Martinsville twice and he finished dead last here in the Fall because of a rear gear issue. In his other race in 2018 he finished 21st. The move to Hattori has seemingly done him some good because he has an average finish of 15.0 in three races this year at three different tracks. We don’t have many tracks to compare Martinsville too, but Purdy did finish sixth at Gateway last year and he finished 16th at Phoenix in the Fall Championship race. Both tracks are completely different layouts and lengths so the configuration is much different. But they’re all flat tracks to hang your hat on. If he shows top 20 speed in practice and offers a little PD, I think we can go here for DFS. I don’t hate his teammate, Tyler Ankrum, either but I do like the discount you can get with Purdy for arguably a similar result to Ankrum.

Timmy Hill ($6,100) – I’m not quite sure what they put in the water here aside from hotdogs that need to boil, but Timmy loves Martinsville. His recent resume will likely make him chalk as a value play, but no one should be surprised:

  • 2021 – Started 24th, Finished 10th
  • 2020 – Started 23rd, Finished 14th
  • 2019 – Started 22nd, Finished 5th

If he’s offering similar PD on Thursday or even if he starts just inside the top 20, he’s going to be a great finishing position play. Is he safe from a wreck? No, but he has plenty of experience here from a value perspective and deserves to be in the Playbook for his recent success here.

Kris Wright ($5,700) – I’m setting the bar pretty low when I say that Wright hasn’t been terrible this year. And what I mean by that is that he’s starting and finishing in almost the same spot. His worst finish is P21 at Atlanta, but that’s also where he started. At COTA, he started 17th and finished 15th. At Vegas he started 16th and finished 18th. So he’s not exactly crushing it in terms of PD but he’s doing okay as a driver that’s in the value tier. In his Martinsville debut last year he started P26 and finished 13th. It’s likely too much to expect him to repeat that performance, but I’m optimistic he can deliver a top 20 finish if the setup is right.

Tate Fogleman ($5,400) – This is probably risky. On paper, Fogleman’s done well moving up through the field. But one of those races was Daytona and the other was an absolute mess of a race at COTA. To his credit, he still has three finishes of 22nd or better through four races and he grabbed a top 20 last Fall at Martinsville. The sample size is small, but if he offers PD I think we can go here for DFS. I don’t love the play, but I trust him more than some other guys in this range that we don’t really know.

Jake Garcia ($4,800) – We know very little about Jake Garcia and truthfully this isn’t a driver you want more than 15% ownership on. He’s dirt cheap and he’s running in an additional McAnally-Hilgemann Racing truck. It’s arguably similar in equipment to Derek Kraus and Colby Howard. Kraus is an okay DFS target at times. I can’t say the same about Howard at the moment. But the three guys cheaper than Garcia are all in crap equipment so Garcia’s about as low as I want to go. This kid is young and he’s very frail. He just turned 17 a month ago, he’s 5’5” and probably 130 pounds soaking wet. But he’s slowly making a name for himself. Last year he was champion of the Southern Super Series (late models) and he ran the ARCA West finale last year finishing 6th at Phoenix. So he’s a bit of an up and comer. Could he go out and get bullied out of position? Sure. But I think this is one way to differentiate your Kyle Busch lineups since casual players don’t have a clue who this kid is… Hell, I barely do.

Example Lineups

The example lineups will be posted separately no later than 7:30pm ET Thursday night.