This Saturday (March 23), the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will roll into Austin, Texas, for its annual trip to Circuit of the Americas.
Since its addition to the NASCAR schedule in 2021, the Truck Series in particular has been treated to some pretty good racing around the 3.426-mile, 20-turn road course.
However, one team somehow keeps winning at COTA through it all: Front Row Motorsports.
FRM is currently 3-0 in Truck Series competition at COTA between two drivers. Yes, you read that right. Front Row Motorsports has yet to lose a Truck Series race at COTA.
Todd Gilliland won the inaugural truck race in 2021, winning stage one and leading just eight of the 41 laps (but keep in mind, COTA is nearly 3.5 miles long, so 41 laps is a pretty long race – the Cup race is just 68 laps, for reference).
The win, just the second of Gilliland’s three career Truck Series wins, was not without some adversity, as he and FRM were hit with a penalty on the pit stop following his stage one win for a crew member jumping over the wall too soon. While the win was the only one Gilliland managed in 2021, it did earn him and the team an additional $50,000, as COTA was part of the Triple Truck Challenge that season.
When Gilliland was promoted to FRM’s vacant NASCAR Cup Series ride, Zane Smith continued what Gilliland had done the year before. He also won COTA in 2022 after an insane four-wide pass for the lead with 2 laps to go. The three leaders, Kyle Busch, Alex Bowman and Stewart Friesen, came together in the hairpin of turn 11, washing up the track and allowing Smith to sneak by and steal the win.
As a side note, the excitement in the commentary provided by Andy Lally made the pass all the more exciting. Can we please get him back in the broadcast booth sometime?
The following year, Smith made it two-for-two and gave FRM its third-straight win in as many races at COTA. In the first NASCAR premier series race in over a half-decade with no stage cautions, an increase in strategy allowed Smith to take advantage of a timely caution and inherit the lead.
Busch again lost out, as a caution (for an electrical fire aboard Parker Kligerman‘s No. 75) came out before he had a chance to pit and had to restart deep in the field. He was only able to finish runner-up behind the No. 38.
Smith celebrated by burning his truck down — literally. He damn near burned the track up, too.
Now with Smith graduating to the Cup Series…
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