{"id":20666,"date":"2018-07-17T09:30:48","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T14:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=20666"},"modified":"2018-07-25T13:18:31","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T18:18:31","slug":"opportunity-awaits-at-nascars-lone-national-series-dirt-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/17\/opportunity-awaits-at-nascars-lone-national-series-dirt-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity awaits at NASCAR\u2019s lone national series dirt race"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

There is plenty of opportunity awaiting NASCAR Camping World Truck Series<\/a> competitors at Eldora Speedway\u2019s<\/strong> highly-anticipated Eldora Dirt Derby<\/strong> Wednesday night (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

\"\"

John Hunter Nemechek, driver of the #8 Fire Alarm Services, Inc. Chevrolet, drives during practice for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series 5th Annual Eldora Dirt Derby 150 at Eldora Speedway on July 18, 2017 in Rossburg, Ohio. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Only one previous race winner is entered \u2013 2017 victor Matt Crafton \u2013 and there will be plenty of new faces and inspired spirits competing for NASCAR\u2019s most unique crown on the one-of-a-kind Eldora Speedway half-mile dirt track.<\/p>\n

Series points leader Johnny Sauter is still looking for his Eldora trophy, with three finishes of 20th or worse in five starts there. He was 23rd in the race last year.<\/p>\n

Of the top-five drivers in the truck title hunt, fourth-place Stewart Friesen was runner-up to Crafton in last year\u2019s race. Grant Enfinger \u2013 ranked fifth in the championship \u2013 was fourth in last year\u2019s Eldora race and current championship second place driver Noah Gragson was seventh. Third place in the standings, Brett Moffitt, did not compete at Eldora last year.<\/p>\n

Two-time series champion Crafton is the only driver in the field to post top-10 finishes in all five runnings of the popular race at former Cup champion Tony Stewart\u2019s Ohio track. A win this week would certainly help buoy his position in the standings. He\u2019s currently seventh, 136 points behind first-place Sauter.<\/p>\n

There are 14 drivers among the 40 entered who have never raced at Eldora Speedway. Eight drivers hope to start their first career dirt-track event, and seven competitors are making their Camping World Truck Series debuts.<\/p>\n

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series<\/b><\/p>\n

Next Race:<\/b> Eldora Dirt Derby<\/p>\n

The Place:<\/b>  Eldora Speedway (Rossburg, Ohio)<\/p>\n

The Date:<\/b> Wednesday, July 21<\/p>\n

The Time:<\/b> 9 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

TV:<\/b> FS1<\/p>\n

Radio:<\/b> MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio<\/p>\n

Distance:<\/b> 75 miles (150 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on lap 40), Stage 2 (Ends on lap 90), and Final Stage (Ends on lap 150)<\/p>\n

What to Watch For:<\/b> In five previous races there have been no repeat winners at Eldora. \u2026 Matt Crafton, the 2017 race winner, leads all drivers with top-10 finishes in all five races. \u2026 Toyota\u2019s three wins at Eldora are most among the manufacturers. \u2026 Ford broke into victory circle last week with Ben Rhodes at Kentucky Speedway, the OEM\u2019s first win of 2018. \u2026 The closest Margin of Victory in this race is .762-seconds, coming when Christopher Bell beat Bobby Pearce in 2015. \u2026 Noah Gragson\u2019s runner-up effort last week in Kentucky gives him a series-high four runner-up finishes on the year. He has finished first (once) or second, five times, tying championship leader Johnny Sauter who has four wins and a runner-up. \u2026 Sauter has not won at Eldora. His best finish is eighth back in 2014. \u2026 Fourteen of the 40 drivers entered this week have never raced at Eldora previously. \u2026 Seven of those drivers are making their series debut. \u2026 Inaugural race winner Austin Dillon holds the distinction of starting from the farthest spot back on the grid (19). The other four winners started seventh or better. The race has never been won from the pole position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service There is plenty of opportunity awaiting NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competitors at Eldora Speedway\u2019s highly-anticipated Eldora Dirt Derby Wednesday night (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Only one previous race winner is entered \u2013 2017 victor Matt Crafton \u2013 and there will be plenty of new faces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[293,16],"class_list":["post-20666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-eldora-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/NCWTS-Eldora-NemechekNo8-07182017.jpg?fit=3000%2C2054","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5nk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20669,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20666\/revisions\/20669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}