TRUCKS: Clayton Green in position for second-straight LASTCAR title after busted radiator ends his race in Charlotte
by Brock Beard / LASTCAR.info Editor-in-Chief
PHOTO: Jared Haas, @RealJaredHaas
Clayton Green picked up the 6th last-place finish of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career in Friday’s Ecosave 200 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when his #22 Firman Power Equipment Ford fell out with overheating issues after he completed 57 of 134 laps.
The finish, which came in Green’s 18th series start, was his second of the season and first since April 10, 2026 at Bristol, 15 races ago. In the Truck Series’ last-place rankings, it was the 13th for the #22, the 28th from overheating issues, and the 150th for Ford. Across NASCAR’s top three series, it was the 53rd for the #22, the 186th from overheating, and the 1,109th for Ford.
With the finish, Green joins Jackson Macenko as the only two drivers with multiple last-place finishes during the 2026 Truck Series season. Green also takes the lead in the 2026 LASTCAR Truck Series Championship. His bid for a second-straight title sees him hold a slender lead on a bottom-ten tiebreaker of 7-2 with just four races left to run.
Charlotte marked just the fifth series start Green has made since his last-place run in April. This included last time out at Kansas, where he matched his season-best 23rd-place showing at Atlanta in February. While Green also piloted Team Reaume’s #22 Ford last time out, the preliminary entry list showed “TBA” in the driver’s column. It wasn’t until midweek that Green was confirmed to again drive on Friday. Team sponsor Firman Power Equipment again backed the black-and-teal truck, their logo in pink to match the truck’s door numbers to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
With 36 drivers entered for as many starting spots, Green ran 34th with a best lap of 32.192 seconds (167.744mph), just ahead of his Team Reaume teammates in 35th-place Luke Baldwin in the #2 More Core Diamond Drilling Ford and 36th-place Josh Reaume, substituting for Pirelli GT4 championship contender Frankie Muniz in the #33 Aerial Titans Ford. Green was the sixth truck on track in qualifying, where he ran the slowest completed lap at 32.391 seconds (166.713mph).
This still secured Green 35th on the grid as Giovanni Ruggiero failed to complete a lap due to a ripped axle seal on the #17 JBL Toyota, placing him 36th with a redundant tail-end penalty. Also sent to the back for unapproved adjustments were 26th-place Stewart Friesen, whose #52 Halmar International Toyota, painted to resemble the late Kyle Busch’s Miccosukee Toyota for team owner Billy Ballew, bounced off the wall exiting Turn 4, plus 30th-place Regan Smith in the #25 RAM-sponsored RAM.
When the green flag dropped, Ruggiero remained in the last row on the outside of Green, and the two remained door-to-door down the backstretch. By Lap 2, Reaume was in last place as he now trailed the field. By Lap 24, Reaume’s was the fist truck one lap down in the 36th spot with Green still 35th, 28.376 seconds back of the lead. Green, too, was lapped the next time by, leaving teammate Baldwin in 34th the last truck on the lead lap. The order remained the same as Stage 1 ended on Lap 30 with Reaume still off the lead lap in last place. The race then restarted on Lap 38 with 35th-place Green and 36th-place Reaume the only two off the lead lap.
By Lap 46, Baldwin had caught and passed Spencer Boyd for 33rd, and Boyd’s #76 Desnuda Organic Tequila Chevrolet had fallen to 34th, a full three seconds back of Baldwin. Then around Lap 47, Reaume cut down a right-front tire and made slight contact with the outside wall. He came down pit road, losing a second lap, and the crew cleared his damage on pit road while changing tires. Reaume instructed the team to check the sway bar in case it was rubbing the tire, and also had them clear the grille. On Lap 51, Reaume returned to the track five laps down, only to immediately incur a pass-through penalty for too many crew members over the wall. His first lap after the stop clocked in at 152.084 seconds, or just over two-and-a-half minutes. On Lap 54, Reaume served the penalty and dropped seven laps down. By then, Green in 35th was now three laps down, and Mini Tyrell had just dropped off the lead lap in 34th in the #14 RAM-sponsored RAM.
FOX’s cameras then caught Reaume running the low lane entering Turn 3 as he was quickly passed by the battle for 3rd place between Rajah Caruth and Chandler Smith. By then, 33rd-place Boyd was now about seven seconds back of 32nd and 28.060 back of the leader while 34th-place Tyrrell was handed a penalty. The leaders then caught and lapped Boyd by Lap 58, after which Green briefly appeared on camera as Tanner Gray and Brent Crews sped past him in their battle for 7th. On Lap 61, when the caution fell to end Stage 2, Reaume reported his truck was handling much better than it had at the start, that it was now “in the race track.” Just before that caution fell, Tanner Gray cut down a tire and plummeted from the Top 10 to the 32nd spot in his #15 Black’s Tire / Down East Heating & Air Toyota.
It was during the Stage 2 caution that Green pulled behind the wall with a water leak, which soon dropped him behind Reaume into last place. The team wasn’t sure where the leak was coming from, but believed it to be from an overheating issue. It wasn’t until Lap 79 that the team discovered a large hole in the nose which punched a hole in the radiator, causing the loss of fluid. “We are done,” said the team, which then arranged to have their remaining tires transported to teammate Baldwin’s pit box. Baldwin made it to 22nd by the checkered flag with Reaume in 27th as both survived a series of late-race accidents.
Taking the 35th spot was Stewart Friesen, who after his encounter with the Turn 4 wall in practice ended up hitting the wall in Turns 1 and 2, shredding brake parts and pieces of rubber off the right-front tire as he limped back to the garage area. A multi-truck accident then exploded on Lap 119 after Caruth’s #77 Chevrolet slowed midway down the backstretch, collecting teammate and polesitter Conor Mosack in the #7 PurePEX Chevrolet and Timmy Hill in the #56 UNITS Toyota, among others, with Mosack taking 33rd and Hill in 32nd. Between them came Conner Jones, whose handling issues ended his run in the #42 Comprehensive Logistics Chevrolet after 115 laps.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
36) #22-Clayton Green / 57 laps / overheating
35) #52-Stewart Friesen / 98 laps / crash
34) #42-Conner Jones / 115 laps / handling
33) #7-Connor Mosack / 117 laps / crash / led 2 laps
32) #56-Timmy Hill / 117 laps / crash
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #22 in a Truck Series race at Charlotte.
2026 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES OWNER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Team Reaume (6)
2nd) Niece Motorsports (4)
3rd) Halmar Friesen Racing, McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, ThorSport Racing (2)
4th) Freedom Racing Enterprises, Front Row Motorsports, Kaulig RAM Racing, Motorsports Business Management, Rackley-W.A.R. (1)
2026 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES MANUFACTURER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Ford (10)
2nd) Chevrolet (8)
3rd) Toyota (2)
4th) RAM (1)
2026 LASTCAR TRUCK SERIES DRIVER'S CHAMPIONSHIP
