PREVIEW: Road course specialists looking to try their hand at oval racing this weekend in Phoenix
by Brock Beard / LASTCAR.info Editor-in-Chief
IMAGE: Freedom Racing Enterprises, @FreedomRacing76
Friday, October 16, 2026 (Green Flag 7:50 P.M. ET, FS1)
TRUCKS Race 22 of 25
Chase Race 4 of 7
Zero Carbon Bioethanol 150 Powered by Poet at Phoenix
2025 Last-Place Finisher: Dawson Sutton
ENTRY LIST
There are 36 drivers entered for as many starting spots, so all entered will qualify as the fall Phoenix weekend moves out of the championship finale for the first time since 2019.
DRIVER CHANGE: #2-Team Reaume
California driver Monty Tipton returns to the Truck Series for the first time since his series debut at IRP, where he finished 30th in Team Reaume’s #22. Bare Bones returns as sponsor as he this time drives Reaume’s #2 in place of Luke Baldwin, who finished 22nd in Charlotte.
DRIVER CHANGE: #4-Niece Motorsports
Donovan Strauss will likewise make his seconds series start, his return dating back to North Wilkesboro, where heat exhaustion put him in last place. Strauss will again drive Niece Motorsports’ #4 Chevrolet, this week taking the place of 23rd-place Charlotte finisher Matt Mills. Clothing brand Nightclubs Suck is again his sponsor.
DRIVER CHANGE: #5-TRICON Garage
William Sawalich will run double-duty with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for a seventh time in 2026, his first start since his season-best 7th-place showing under the lights at Bristol. He returns to the TRICON #5 team with which he made four of those starts, this week taking the place of 4th-place Charlotte finisher Bayley Currey. Soundgear continues as sponsor.
DRIVER CHANGE: #20-McAnally-Hilgemann Racing
Toni Breidinger will make her fifth start of the year and first since a 26th-place showing in Kansas, when she drove in place of Dawson Sutton. Sutton remains in the #26 while Breidinger drives the McAnally #20 in place of 28th-place Charlotte finisher Daniel Dye. Breidinger last drove this entry at Watkins Glen, where she failed to qualify.
NEW TEAM: #23-Team Reaume
Jackson Lee will make his oval track debut after his first four series starts came on the road courses of St. Petersburg, Watkins Glen, Naval Base Coronado, and Lime Rock Park, where he finished a season-best 13th. With continuing sponsorship from Browning Champion, Lee will debut a new part-time fourth entry for the Reaume effort, the #23 Ford.
DRIVER CHANGE: #25-Kaulig RAM Racing
Conor Daly returns to the Truck Series for the first time since his 16th-place showing in Kansas as he takes the place of 17th-place Charlotte finisher Regan Smith. Daly has twice competed at the Phoenix track in the IndyCar ranks, taking 16th in 2016 and 14th his last time out in 2017.
DRIVER CHANGE: #33-Team Reaume
Fresh off his Pirelli GT4 championship clinched last week at Indianapolis, Frankie Muniz returns to the Truck Series at his home track, taking the place of 27th-place Charlotte finisher Josh Reaume. Muniz finished 19th in this race last fall.
DRIVER CHANGE: #42-Niece Motorsports
Tyler Reif returns to the site of his Truck Series debut in this race last year, where he earned a career-best 9th-place finish, and the same track where he won his first ARCA West Series race in 2023. Taking the place of Conner Jones, who finished 34th at Charlotte due to late-race handling issues, Reif carries returning team sponsor DQS Solutions & Staffing.
MISSING: #56-Hill Motorsports
Crash damage ended Timmy Hill’s race in Charlotte last week, leaving him in the 32nd spot. Both Hill and team are not among this week’s entrants.
DRIVER CHANGE: #76-Freedom Racing Enterprises
Just like Jackson Lee, tonight’s race will see Ben Maier make his own NASCAR oval-track debut following four road course starts, including a career-best 11th-place showing earlier this season in St. Petersburg. Taking the place of 24th-place Charlotte finisher Spencer Boyd, Maier is the third road course specialist to pilot the #76 this season, joining Nathan Nicholson and Louis Foster.
DRIVER CHANGE: #77-Spire Motorsports
Tecovas is the listed sponsor for young phenom Tristan McKee, who has finished 8th, 6th, and 5th in his first three career series starts at Richmond, Loudon, and last month in Bristol. McKee takes the place of Rajh Caruth, who lost power at Charlotte, leading to a multi-truck accident that left him in 31st. McKee has made a pair of ARCA Menards Series West starts at Phoenix, taking 4th last fall and a runner-up to Carson Brown this past March.
Tristan McKee in for Rajah Caruth, looking to continue his impressive start to the series.
CUP INVADERS: None
Saturday, October 17, 2026 (Green Flag 7:52 P.M. ET, CW)
O’REILLY Race 30 of 33
Chase Race 6 of 9
Timberland PRO 200 at Phoenix
2025 Last-Place Finisher: Jeb Burton
ENTRY LIST
There are 38 drivers entered for 38 starting spots in Saturday’s race, so all will qualify.
DRIVER CHANGE: #32-Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport
After a sterling 5th-place finish for Carson Brown under the lights in Charlotte, Andrew Patterson returns to the driver’s seat for tomorrow’s race, where Winsupply returns as sponsor. This will mark Patterson’s eighth series start, his first since a 22nd-place showing in Las Vegas, and his first in Phoenix.
MISSING: #38-RSS Racing
Not among this week’s entrants is the “start-and-park” #38 Ford fielded by RSS Racing, with which J.J. Yeley took the lead in the LASTCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Championship last week in Charlotte. Dawson Cram, still entered in the Harmon team’s #47, has the opportunity to respond.
DRIVER CHANGE: #42-Young’s Motorsports
Brad Perez makes his seventh series start of the season, his first since he last piloted Randy Young’s #42 at Gateway, yielding a 28th-place finish. Santiam Rentals is the listed sponsor as Perez takes the place of 21st-place Charlotte finisher Matt DiBenedetto. This marks Perez’ first series start at Phoenix, where he failed to qualify Mike Harmon’s car in the 2023 race following a wreck in qualifying.
RETURNING: #43-SPS Racing
The Sigma Performance Services team will get its first-ever NASCAR start in only their second-ever O’Reilly attempt, the first since ARCA driver Landon S. Huffman’s DNQ at Bristol. Huffman will not drive this week as Connor Mosack will run double-duty with today’s Truck Series race in the Spire #7. This will mark Mosack’s 35th O’Reilly Series start and first since this same track last fall, when he rounded out the year for Viking Motorsports in the #99 by taking 22nd.
DRIVER CHANGE: #53-Joey Gase Motorsports with Soctt Osteen
Will Rodgers continues to make sporadic starts in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series with his 13th series start dating back to 2019 and third of this year, his first since a 17th-place showing for Young’s Motorsports at Sears Point. This time, Rodgers drives for Joey Gase, piloting the #53 in place of Derek Lemke, who struggled with speed but managed to salvage a 28th-place run in Charlotte. Driving Good Health is the listed sponsor for Rodgers.
DRIVER CHANGE: #91-DGM Racing x JIM
Another double-duty driver with tonight’s Truck Series race is Leland Honeyman, Jr., who returns to the O’Reilly garage for the first time since Daytona in August, where he ran a season-best 13th in Mario Gosselin’s part-time #71 entry. This time, Honeyman drives Gosselin’s #91 in place of Myatt Snider, who finished 25th in Charlotte, and continues to carry DPR Construction as sponsor.
TEAM UPDATE: #92-DGM Racing x JIM
As of this writing, there is neither a driver nor sponsor confirmed for Gosselin’s #92 Chevrolet. Last week in Charlotte, the car was driven by Mason Maggio, who finished in 26th.
CUP INVADERS: None
Sunday, October 18, 2026 (Green Flag 3:05 P.M. ET, USA)
CUP Race 33 of 36
Chase Race 7 of 10
Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix
2025 Last-Place Finisher: A.J. Allmendinger
ENTRY LIST
There are 37 drivers entered for 40 starting spots on Sunday, marking the 30th short field in 33 races this season.
MISSING: #44-NY Racing Team
MISSING: #66-Garage 66
Both John Cohen and Carl Long’s teams will not make the long trip west along with their Charlotte drivers B.J. McLeod and Gray Gaulding, who finished 33rd and 36th, respectively. Corey Heim stands as the lone “open” entry as he runs his race-winning Mobil 1 paint scheme from Naval Base Coronado.
TODAY IN LASTCAR HISTORY (October 16, 1960): Fred Lorenzen picked up the first last-place finish of his NASCAR Grand National Series career in the National 400 at Charlotte, where his #28 1960 Ford had a vibration after 4 laps. Lorenzen started 33rd in that day’s field of a staggering 50 cars. This was Lorenzen’s first Cup Series last-place finish since 1955 and his last until 1964.
