TRUCKS: At Rockingham, Benning and Carroll flagged off the track for failing to maintain minimum speed; Mallozzi claws out of last place following multiple trips to the garage
by Brock Beard / LASTCAR.info Editor-in-Chief
Benning’s #6 on the grid at Rockingham next to Stephen Mallozzi’s #2. (ALL PHOTOS: Brock Beard)
Norm Benning picked up the 19th last-place finish of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career in Friday’s Black’s Tire 200 at the Rockingham Speedway when his #6 MDIA, Inc. Chevrolet was parked for running too slow after 17 of 200 laps.
The finish, which came in Benning’s 262nd series start, was his first of the season and his first in a Truck Series race since November 1, 2024 at Martinsville, eight races ago. In the Truck Series’ last-place rankings, it was the 6th for running too slow, the 18th for the #6, and the 457th for Chevrolet. Across NASCAR’s top three series, it was the 10th for running too slow, the 73rd for the #6, and the 1,985th for Chevrolet.
Coming into Friday’s race, Benning had made just three series starts since his most recent last-place run. He and his former Henderson Motorsports truck finished a strong 16th in the season opener at Daytona, but Benning was left unsatisfied that he couldn’t climb any higher when he caught the lead pack. Brake issues then cut short his race at Martinsville, leading to last week’s series of radio issues at Bristol. After practice, I asked Benning what happened that night:
“Well, that's what happened with four or five teams. We were gonna go out and practice, and then the sun came out, and we put the radios in the trucks, and then all of a sudden, it started raining again. And (we) didn't take the stuff out - that was a big mistake. Got in it to go racing, and all I heard was a bunch of gargling, and NASCAR doesn't like that. It's not safe when you don't have communication. So, we ran, I guess, 38 laps or something (35), and I kept thinking, hoping it was going to clear up, but it didn't. And my headsets - my earplugs - he checked them this morning. They were shorted out from the rain. They were junk.”
“So then in Martinsville, we had a brake issue in Martinsville, but we had a fast truck at both those places. I'm trying to make NDIA happy, my sponsor, because he's been disappointed last two races, and we're hoping we can do a decent job here tonight. . . (At Bristol), I checked the radios during final adjustments, and they were fine. And I got in it to race it, and they didn't work anymore (laugh). So, we did everything we could, but we shouldn't have left them sit in the truck - all the humidity and they got in there.” Benning said he had a new properly functioning radio setup for Friday.
PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING
When racing returned to Rockingham for a test session earlier this year, Benning was among the few on the entry list of 35 drivers who had raced on the track. He and his owner-driver operation made three ARCA Menards Series starts from 2008 to 2009 with a best finish of 26th, then returned to compete in both Truck Series starts at the track in 2012, taking 30th, then 33rd in 2013. In both his Truck starts, he finished laps down to the leader, but came home under power.
In practice, Benning and his former Kevin Harvick, Incorporated truck ranked 34th with a lap of 25.391 seconds (133.276mph). He lost a little speed in qualifying with a lap of 25.487 seconds (132.774mph), citing an issue with the left-front shock, but nevertheless looked forward to racing on the track’s new pavement. I caught up to him at his small hauler, which was parked furthest from the Truck Series garage entrance, lined up next to the transporters for Justin S. Carroll’s #90 and Parker Kligerman’s #75.
“It’s a lot smoother now, fresh asphalt, a lot of grip,” he said. “I like it.” He then looked ahead to the race itself. “My goal here is just to stay on the lead lap, be there at the end. . . I'd be tickled to death if I could just be out there all night. I'll have a good finish if I do.”
Cody Dennison’s #22 in the garage after a suspected oil leak in practice.
Securing the 35th and final starting spot was Cody Dennison, back in the Truck Series for the first time since his Truck Series debut in Martinsville. This time, he drove Reaume Brothers Racing’s #22 in place of the #2, again with his sponsorship from the Timcast with Flux on the quarter-panels. Dennison ranked 32nd in practice, then suddenly started trailing smoke, forcing him to stop on the apron of Turns 1 and 2. The truck was towed to the garage without any body damage, and the crew discussed whether an oil leak had occurred instead of a blown engine.
“Yeah, it looks like we may have lost the oil on because we didn't lose power,” said Dennison after he climbed from the truck. “I didn't shut the truck off. I just started smoking and my spotter said, ‘smoking, pull off,’ and I thought he was talking about somebody else. And then it started getting really bad. So, I pulled off, and it was still under its own power, rattling it, you know, 2200, 2300 (rpms). I just shut it off. So, and they were thinking - it could be an oil line. So that's what we're looking at.”
Stephen Mallozzi, one of Dennison’s teammates in the #2 Stacking Dennys Ford, remarked that he’d never had to fight the wheel harder than he had in Rockingham’s practice session. Mallozzi ran the slowest lap in practice at 25.924 seconds (130.535mph), a half-second off Benning’s time, but still above minimum speed, which NASCAR was policing closely. Dennison also commented on how aggressive his steering had been. “I think we have an eight box in this,” said Dennison. “As far as I remember, from Martinsville, unless they changed it. I am putting a lot of wheel into it - it's kind of like a Dover type situation, where you just have to spray and pray. . .whereas you just jerk into the corner and you hope it sticks, and it's it was starting to stick, and I was like, ‘okay, I can go faster and faster,’ so we're picking up time. And then, of course, it started smoking, so we're going to see if we can fix it and see if we can make some time up.”
THE LAST-PLACE BATTLE
Dennison’s #22 at the tail end of the starting grid.
Dennison didn’t incur a redundant tail-end penalty prior to Friday’s race, but Stewart Friesen surrendered 20th on the grid due to unapproved adjustments on the #52 Halmar International Toyota. During the pace laps, NASCAR told those who wanted to lay back before the start to “make it obvious.” Coming to the “one to go” signal, Benning, Mallozzi, and Dennison were trailing the field by open track, letting Friesen move ahead of them. When the green flag dropped, Mallozzi had lagged behind the other two on the inside line, resulting in about a one-second gap between the final two trucks at the end of Lap 1.
Benning’s pit stall before the start of the race.
Seconds later, the first caution flag flew on Lap 2 for a multi-truck tangle in Turn 3. Connor Mosack’s #81 Friends of Jaclyn Chevrolet broke loose racing under Bayley Currey’s #44 Masked Owl Technologies / DQS Chevrolet, putting Currey into the wall and sending Mosack spinning down the track. Also involved was Toni Breidinger, who suffered damage to the left-front fender of her #5 Raising Cane’s Toyota. Both Currey and Breidinger continued on the track while Mosack took longer to get going. This put Mosack in last place until Lap 4, when the trio came down pit road. On Lap 5, Mallozzi again lagged back, letting trucks past off Turn 4 as he nearly stopped in the high lane.
Mallozzi enters pit road during the early laps.
On the Lap 7 restart, where all trucks cleared minimum speed, Mallozzi remained in last place behind both Benning and Dennison. Dennison was now closing on the 32nd-place running Justin S. Carroll in the #90 Carroll’s Automotive Toyota. Mallozzi then made his first pit stop before he could be lapped, and Benning was first warned by NASCAR to pick up the pace. By Lap 18, when Benning came down pit road ahead of Currey and Dennison, Mallozzi was in the garage area at Turn 1, his truck pointing perpendicular to the rear of his team’s transporter. By Lap 22, Mallozzi was still behind the wheel, the window net up, and the crew hard at work making adjustments.
Work continues on Mallozzi’s #2 while Benning’s #6 (left-center) is parked by his hauler.
Benning’s truck then showed up around Lap 26, parked facing the rear entrance to the garage. Two NASCAR officials were there to see him, one sticking his head through the driver’s window to talk to Benning. According to Benning, he thought he’d be allowed to make repairs in the garage as he hadn’t on pit road, but was then told he’d been parked. “The official up there said I could work on it if I came back here, which we were gonna do,” he said. “And then they decided I was done.”
NASCAR officials speak with members of Benning’s team in the garage.
On Lap 31, NASCAR also flagged Carroll’s #90 for not maintaining minimum speed, making him come in for repairs. Five laps later, Dennison pulled behind the wall at a different spot closer to the starting line, also to address a mechanical issue. On Lap 40, Benning told his team to break down the pit box, indicating they were done for the day.
“Something happened with the right-front shock,” said Benning after he climbed from his truck. “It was bottoming out, and we don't know yet, till we get it apart, but I think it was a spring issue. But, yeah, I was driving the hell out of going into the corner, and it was just hitting the race track. I wish they'd have let us work on it. . .Helix or something moved on it caused it to hit hard, so - you can't drive them when they're bottoming out.”
“It felt pretty good first 10 laps of the race there, we were going pretty good. And then something moved, something broke. And these 28-degree banks aren't very forgiving on the right-front when it's not right. And I didn't want to get in their way - I'm here to race. I'm not here to park. So, like I said, we're gonna we got three weeks to get ready for North Wilkesboro. I want to be very good there.” Benning’s search for additional sponsorship continues. “My number’s in the phone book,” he said.
Justin S. Carroll’s #90 pulls up to the team’s hauler in the garage.
Meanwhile, just before Stage 1 ended on Lap 47, Mallozzi fired the engine on his #2, then made a u-turn to the left that sent him toward the other end of the garage at Turn 1. Some time later, Mallozzi exited the garage and returned to the track along with Dennison. As the two Reaume trucks began to make up their deficit to Benning, Carroll pulled into the garage and parked behind the team’s hauler. Benning’s team noticed this and relayed a message that they were just 17 laps back of Carroll. But someone else on the crew responded Benning was done for the day, so they wouldn’t be able to gain another spot. As it happened, both drivers had been parked by NASCAR for failing to meet minimum speed.
I then caught up with Carroll as he debriefed with his team: “I mean, we were decent. We brought a tired motor here, and we don't have all the aerodynamic stuff we need. So, we knew we'd be down a little bit. But just, once you get lapped here, the track's so lane-sensitive it's - really, getting into (Turn) 3, it's really tight. And just trying to stay out of the way of the leaders. I never got a chance to get back up to speed correctly, so they just parked us. But it sucks, because I feel like we had a better truck than what showed a little bit. And I'm trying to learn these bigger tracks too. So being in the pits definitely doesn't help me. But it's hard to get lapped here and stay in the throttle because it is so tight, getting into (Turn) 3 especially, and it just cost us today, but we just got to get better. It's on us. We'll get better and come back.”
Carroll also elaborated on the challenges of reaching minimum speed at Rockingham: “They gave us one opportunity, and then we went back out, and then - but when you go back out, they only give you one lap, so if you don't have a good hold, you're done. And they were spread out all around the field, so they did the same thing at Bristol, and we were able to get back out because we had issues, and we were a little slow. We fixed it, and we were able to get back out and be competitive. But this is the first or second time I've ever seen it done that way. I feel like we're getting faster, but still not fast enough, but we'll get better.”
As with Benning, Carroll’s next scheduled race will be North Wilkesboro with Charlotte and possibly Nashville to follow. “But we'll definitely have to pick and choose a little bit. Getting out early definitely hurts us because we can't finish as good as we probably would have, but we'll keep working on it and try and get better.”
Mallozzi gets a push after his second trip to the garage.
Back on the track, Mallozzi and Dennison continued to log laps with Dennison, then Mallozzi passing first Benning and then Carroll, dropping Benning to last place. In the process, Mallozzi incurred a pair of pit road speeding penalties in Sections 1 and 2 on Laps 65 and 68. He also made a second trip to the garage – this time parking next to the team’s hauler – and returned to the track a second time when Stage 2 ended on Lap 92. He ultimately completed 41 laps, learning 34th-place Carroll by seven laps, before he returned to the garage for a third time, citing suspension issues. Dennison finished the race under power, 69 laps down, in the 27th spot.
Ben Rhodes enters the garage after his steering issues.
Taking 32nd was 3rd-place qualifier Ben Rhodes, whose #99 Campers Inn RV Ford plummeted through the field in the opening laps, then pulled into the rear entrance of the garage at the midway point, citing steering issues. Rounding out the group was Ty Majeski, whose #98 Soda Sense / Curb Records Ford spun and backed into the Turn 1 wall on Lap 109, shoving in the rear clip of his truck. A nearly ten-minute red flag was needed to make temporary repairs to the SAFER barrier, which needed welds to fix gouges left by the impact. Further repairs by Hughes Welding and Crane Service were required well into the night to prepare for Saturday’s XFINITY Series race.
Ankrum snaps winless streak while Wood, Mosack, and Byrd earn strong finishes
Friday’s win went to Tyler Ankrum, who snapped a 130-race winless streak – including three disastrous seasons that each saw him finish outside the Top Ten in points. Now, with just one finish worse than 10th in 2025 for his #18 LiUNA! Chevrolet, a streak of three consecutive top-five finishes saw him lead 29 laps in a fuel mileage gamble to the checkered flag, his second career victory. Incredibly, Ankrum’s truck was nearly obliterated in the day’s biggest accident on Lap 117, when a decisive turn to the right off Turn 4 kept the #18 from being collected with the trucks of Stewart Friesen, Matt Mills, and Tanner Gray.
Behind Ankrum, Jack Wood earned a career-best 7th in his #91 Adaptive One Calipers Chevrolet, besting his mark from his most recent top-ten finish at Texas, a 9th on April 1, 2023. Connor Mosack bounced back from his early spin to also earn a Top Ten, coming home 9th. And just outside the Top Ten, an emotional Nathan Byrd earned a 14th-place finish in the #02 Hopegivers International Chevrolet – a new career-best finish in only his 10th series start, besting his previous mark of 19th last year in Kansas.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for both Benning and the #6 in a Truck Series race at Rockingham.
*Benning is the first Truck Series driver to finish last for being flagged off the track for running too slow since August 10, 2024, when the same happened to Jerry Bohlman after 17 laps of his Truck Series debut at Richmond.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
35) #6-Norm Benning / 17 laps / too slow
34) #90-Justin S. Carroll / 34 laps / too slow
33) #2-Stephen Mallozzi / 41 laps / suspension
32) #99-Ben Rhodes / 71 laps / steering
31) #98-Ty Majeski / 109 laps / crash
2025 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Reaume Brothers Racing (4)
2nd) Freedom Racing Enterprises, Henderson Motorsports, Norm Benning Racing (1)
2025 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Ford (4)
2nd) Chevrolet (3)
2025 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
