New Track in NASCAR\u2026\u00a0Kris Wright and the No. 81 F.N.B. Corporation team for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing (MHR) heads back to Florida for Round 3 of the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS) Season. The trucks will hit the streets of St. Petersburg,\u00a0Fla.\u00a0for the\u00a0OnlyBulls\u00a0Green Flag 150. This will be the\u00a0inaugural\u00a0NASCAR sanctioned race at St. Petersburg accompanied by\u00a0Indycar, Indy NXT, USF2000, and MX-5 Cup. This street course has never hosted a heavy stock car like the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, adding a new layer of difficulty for teams throughout the field. The first street course in the NCTS\u2019\u00a032-year history adds a new layer of difficulty for competitors as Wright looks to put his road racing background to use.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Road Course Experience\u2026\u00a0This Saturday\u2019s race at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will be unfamiliar for most of the field, but not for Wright. The Pittsburgh, Penn., native competed in two USF2000 championship races, including one at St. Petersburg, gaining valuable seat time on the street circuit. Wright is one of the few\u00a0NCTS\u00a0regulars with prior experience on the course, although several road racing talents are\u00a0moonlighting\u00a0for this event.\u00a0Wright\u2019s\u00a0background\u00a0is rooted in\u00a0road racing, highlighted by capturing the 2017 IMSA Prototype Challenge Rookie of the Year award and winning the LMP3 championship in 2018. This weekend\u2019s race at St. Petersburg could serve as a\u00a0stepping stone\u00a0and provide positive momentum heading into the first break of the\u00a0NCTS\u00a0season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Season to Date\u2026 Wright\u2019s first two races of the season have shown steady promise as he continues to settle into his first full-time campaign in the NCTS. Wright opened the year at Daytona International Speedway with competitive speed before misfortune late in the race reshuffled the results. One week later at EchoPark Speedway, Wright and crew chief Darren Fraley continued to build chemistry, hitting on a key adjustment in Stage 3 that moved the No. 81 inside the top 15. Wright went on to record a top-20 finish at Atlanta and currently sits 18th in the NCTS points standings, signaling a solid foundation as the season continues.<\/p>\n
Tune In\u2026\u00a0Coverage from St. Petersburg, Fla. begins on Friday afternoon with practice on FOX Sports 2 at 4:00 p.m. ET,\u00a0immediately\u00a0followed by qualifying at 5:05 p.m. ET.\u00a0Live coverage of the\u00a0OnlyBulls\u00a0150 at St. Petersburg on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. ET\u00a0will be\u00a0on FOX Sports\u00a01.\u00a0Stay connected with the No. 81 F.N.B. Corporation team by\u00a0following @BMR_NASCAR on\u00a0X, @bmr_nascar on Instagram and Bill McAnally Racing on Facebook.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kris Wright Quote:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited to head to St. Pete this weekend.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a track\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0raced at before in USF2000, and\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0hoping that experience can help me in the truck race. Obviously,\u00a0the trucks\u00a0are a lot different from open-wheel cars, so\u00a0it\u2019ll\u00a0be a challenge figuring out the differences and learning how to maneuver a big truck through the narrow sections. Our MHR trucks have been fast, and I\u2019m looking forward to a strong weekend in St. Pete.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
MHR PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Track in NASCAR\u2026\u00a0Kris Wright and the No. 81 F.N.B. Corporation team for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing (MHR) heads back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[16089,13333,15067,2365,16092,80360,405,6146,79373,110,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-169307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-craftsman-truck-series","9":"tag-daytona","10":"tag-fox","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-rookie-of-the-year","14":"tag-series","15":"tag-speed","16":"tag-speedway","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-st-pete","19":"tag-st-pete-headlines","20":"tag-st-pete-news","21":"tag-st-petersburg","22":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","23":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}