DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Nick Sanchez becomes the fourth graduate from NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity to reach victory lane in one of the top touring stock car series, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
And it came on the biggest stage motorsports has to offer: Daytona Int’l Speedway.
“Pretty surreal,” Sanchez told Regan Smith of Fox Sports on the frontstretch. “Especially with how the race started, I’m covered in dirt from it. Just a big thanks to my team, sticking with me. All last year we were winless last year. It hurt, we should have won, but we redeemed ourselves in the first race possible.
“Definitely going to be a good year.”
The night didn’t come easy for Sanchez. In fact, the No. 2 Rev Racing Chevrolet was involved in the first caution of the night as multiple trucks crashed on the backstretch on Lap 6 of the 100-lap event. While others were not as fortunate, Sanchez was able to drive away with minimal damage and join the rest of the field.
His perseverance and focus paid off as he claimed the lead on Lap 61 and contended for the win during the second half of the race. He led a race high 26 laps as the race ended under yellow during the first overtime attempt.
“Right there was just classical Daytona,” Sanchez continued during his press conference. “Overtime, restarts, the odds of us finishing under green weren’t really well, so I knew I was pretty much going to have to take the lead on the white flag and hope they wrecked. That happened, and it was kind of odd because our restart played out the same in consecutive restarts with the 7 (Corey LaJoie) and 71 (Rajah Caruth) getting connected and kind of getting too big of a lead, and literally the same thing happened, me and the 17 (Taylor Gray) passed them.
“It was kind of odd. I wasn’t really expecting that to happen. Honestly, I kind of thought I lost the race during that last restart, but it worked out.”
Corey Heim would not lead a lap but would be the highest finishing Toyota driver, running second at the time of caution. Two tenth place finishes in both stages helped in points to give Heim an optimistic start to the season, yet still held strong opinions about his competition’s capability of superspeedway racing.
“I guess just not wrecking for the most part,” said Heim with a chuckle. “First of all, I hope everyone is okay. That was crazy to see in my mirror. It looked bad. Second of all, what an s-h-i-t show. That was crazy. I never avoided so many wrecks in my life. I can’t believe I have a clean truck. I’m not going to complain about it. It’s truck racing; it happens. Super proud of TRICON Garage and Toyota Racing.
“Got a little bit of work to do for Talladega with the speed of this thing, but I thought the best strategy for me was to lay low and hopefully be there at the end, and we were, and looks like we came up one short.”
Rajah Caruth unofficially was credited with a third-place result in his debut with Spire Motorsports. Bret Holmes and Spencer Boyd rounded out the top five positions, giving Chevrolet four of those spots.
After compiling stage points, Tyler Ankrum would start the 2024 season with the championship lead at 43 points. Race winner Sanchez currently sits second with a single mark off the top spot. Christian Eckes holds third with Bret Holmes and three-time Truck champion Matt Crafton tied for fourth. The series races next at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Fr8 208 on February 24 with a green flag scheduled to fly at 2:00 p.m. ET.