The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will make many twists and turns on Friday and Saturday during the Grand Prix weekend at St. Petersburg, Florida. This weekend and next weekend at Phoenix Raceway will be unique, as NASCAR and INDYCAR join forces.<\/p>\n
IndyCar veterans James Hinchcliffe\u2014who makes his NASCAR debut\u2014and Dario Franchitti\u2014who steps behind the wheel of a NASCAR ride for the first time since 2008\u2014will climb behind the wheel for Saturday\u2019s truck event.<\/p>\n
While St. Pete will be different from what it was during Franchitti\u2019s previous INDYCAR start there in 2013, the Scotland native\u2014who has seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson at the helm on the pit box\u2014has five top fives, including a win at the track in 2011, is looking forward to the challenge presented to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think track experience, yeah, is one thing. I understand the surfaces and the details of the circuit. It\u2019s going to feel a lot different in the truck certainly than it did in the INDYCAR,\u201d Franchitti said in a Friday morning press conference. \u201cIt was so long ago. My last INDYCAR start here was 2013. There will be a lot of people out there, a lot of drivers out there learning. We included. If the rain does come, that\u2019s going to throw a bit of a curve ball in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franchitti, who has one Truck Series start at Martinsville dating back to October 2007, joins TRICON Garage in the No. 1 Toyota entry, while Hinchcliffe will climb aboard the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.<\/p>\n
Hinchcliffe offered his thoughts on the differences between a truck and an INDYCAR.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, given the nature of any street circuit, with the walls so close and huge penalties for making mistakes, any track knowledge is an advantage. That said, I don\u2019t know anything about racing a truck, so what I have in circuit knowledge, the series regulars have in truck knowledge. It will be interesting to see how that translates to performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
FOX Sports 2 will carry Craftsman Truck Series practice and qualifying on Friday, beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET. The OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 airs live on FOX Sports 1 at noon Eastern on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will make many twists and turns on Friday and Saturday during the Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[81772,9193,16089,15067,81247,68941,47257,16092,13963,81773,4974,405,110,202,204,203,199,201,200,21279],"class_list":{"0":"post-171983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-81772","9":"tag-chevrolet","10":"tag-craftsman-truck-series","11":"tag-fox","12":"tag-fox-sports-1","13":"tag-jimmie-johnson","14":"tag-motorsports","15":"tag-nascar","16":"tag-october","17":"tag-phoenix-raceway","18":"tag-racing","19":"tag-series","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-st-pete","22":"tag-st-pete-headlines","23":"tag-st-pete-news","24":"tag-st-petersburg","25":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","26":"tag-st-petersburg-news","27":"tag-toyota"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171983","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=171983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}