2020 NASCAR Truck Series Season Preview for DraftKings DFS

Welcome everyone to the 2020 NASCAR Truck Series season preview. Here we will be taking a look at the many changes that occurred during the offseason. We will also take a look at what we can expect from these changes as well as some of the preseason top plays.

This article is brought to you by DFSArmy.com and written by Ryan Larkin. You can catch up with Ryan on twitter or in the DFSA VIP slack @Larkin8

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I want to start by saying no NASCAR season has ever had me as excited as the 2020 Truck Series. The field has almost doubled in depth from 2019 and will have a litany of new faces. Week in and week out we are going to get incredible racing. I personally can not wait for the Truck Series!!

2020 NASCAR Truck Series

Due to the increased depth in the series and the numerous different part-time drivers, we will see a vastly different DFS season than in 2019. While we will see many of the same dominators as 2019 it will be the mid-tier and punt areas that will see the biggest change. We will have quality top 5 and top 10 drivers who will offer elite place differential and we will see the punt plays have less of an overall upside. The quality of drivers and trucks is better than in 2019 as well. This should mean fewer cautions and more consistency throughout the season. For this article, I am going to break down the teams by organization. This will be the most efficient way considering how many driver changes and part-time drivers there will be in 2020. We will also look at the rule and schedule changes for the new season.

The Teams

Kyle Busch Motorsports – 3 Trucks

KBM, perhaps the team with the best equipment, went through a significant lineup change for 2020. Harrison Burton and Todd Gilliland are out and they are placed by Christian Eckes #18 and Raphael Lessard #4. Both Lessard and Eckes ran part-time for KBM over the past couple of years. They have both struggled in general in there few opportunities and will have to step up their performances if they want to be race win contenders. The teams third truck #51 will be split by Kyle Busch who will race in five events, Chandler Smith who will race select events until his 18th birthday where he will take over full-time and a third driver TBD. This #51 is expected to be a race winning truck with both Busch and Smith behind the wheel.

ThorSport Racing – 4 Trucks

There will be zero change from 2019 for Thorsport. This means Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton, Grant Enfinger, and Ben Rhodes are all back and contenders for the 2020 season. This team struggled at times for speed and consistency last year but overall were able to win the regular season title with Enfinger and the Playoffs with Matt Crafton.

GMS Racing – 5 Trucks

GMS has become one of the top flight teams over the last few years with 23 races wins and a drivers championship in 2016. They have moved their company into a development team for young drivers in both the Trucks and ARCA Series. Due to this, we will see many young drivers in their equipment this year. The team will return two full-time drivers while adding two more and a fifth part-time truck. Brett Moffitt returns to the team after winning four races in 2019 and finishing third in the championship. Sheldon Creed also returns to the team off of a strong finish to the season. Both will be top playoff and championship contenders in 2020.

The GMS newcomers

Tyler Ankrum who comes over from DGR-Crosley and Zane Smith. Ankrum was a race winner in the truck series last year and should be looked at as a top contender as well. Zane Smith has only one truck start to his name but is coming off a strong stint with JRM in the Xfinity Series in 2019. All four teams should contend for wins and the playoffs. Lastly, the fifth truck will be driver part time by Sam Mayer (GMS development driver) and David Gravel who is coming over from the Sprint Car world to try his hand at stock cars. This elite team is bringing tons of talent to the track in 2020.

Niece Motorsports – 3 Trucks

Niece made a huge splash in 2019 with Ross Chastain. The team went full attack in an attempt to win races and did just that winning three times. They are switching things up a bit driver wise in 2020. Ty Majeski will take over the main #45 truck that was driven by Chastain last year. The #44 will run full time as well and will be split between Natalie Decker, Ross Chastain and potentially a couple of other drivers. The team will also run a third truck the #40 that appears it will be split between Ryan Truex (6 races) and Carson Hocevar (9 races).

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Now, let’s take a look at some of the top equipment single car teams who are primed to make a big impact in 2020.

Halmar Friesen Racing

Stewart Friesen is back with his #52 team with only one major change. The team has switched to Toyota equipment in an alliance deal with Kyle Busch Motorsports. This very well could be the next step for Friesen in what could be a dominate 2020 season. My personal pick to win the most races of any series regular and the championship.

Hattori Racing Enterprises

Hattori won the 2018 championship with Brett Moffitt and followed it up by winning four races in 2019 with Austin Hill. Hill was only a few points away from making the championship race in 2019 and I expect him to contend yet again in 2020.

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing

MHR has been a long time ARCA West team that has run select Truck events over the past couple of years. They will now run full time with driver Derek Kraus who won the ARCA West championship with the team in 2019. They will have an alliance with Hattori Enterprises for the season. Will have solid equipment but there will be a learning curve for the young team.

DGR-Crosley/Front Row Motorsports

Technically listed as two separate teams but clearly are going to operate as teammates. DGR made the switch to Ford over the offseason and will run with Tanner Gray as a full time driver this year. Front Row will have an alliance with DGR and will have Todd Gilliland as it’s driver. Todd is moving over from KBM where he had a mediocre season even with winning at Martinsville late in the year. Todd is the son of DGR owner David Gilliland.

Quick Hits

For this section we are going to take a quick look at the rest of the notable teams for the 2020 Truck season.

Young Motorsports – #02 will be driven by Tate Fogleman who is replacing Tyler Dippel. #20 will be driven by the returning Spencer Boyd
Jordan Anderson Racing – Jordan Anderson will return with his own team for the 2020 season.
Reamue Brothers Racing – Angela Ruch will run a full schedule in the #00 for RBR.
Diversified Motorsports Enterprises – DME is the #97 team that was purchased from Jesse Little last year. Little will return to the team as driver for a partial schedule.
Clay Greenfield Motorsports – Clay Greenfield is back with an expanded 8 race schedule and will work with Cup champion crew chief Jeff Hammond.

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Schedule Changes

There were only a couple of schedule changes for the 2020 season. The main change sees the spring Martinsville race get moved to Richmond. The Truck Series last ran at Richmond in 2005. The other change is the same with all three national touring series in which Homestead moves to March and Phoenix takes over as the championship race.

Rule Changes

Only a couple of changes for the Truck Series in terms of rules as well. The series will now have 10 playoff drivers for the 2020 season which is up from 8 the previous year. This is a large reason why I wanted to state how many quality trucks there were earlier in the article. This will help with identifying who will be in contention later in the year. This also goes for the Owner’s Champions for teams with drivers splitting the schedule> There could be teams fighting for an Owners title, like the #51 of KBM while not having a driver in the driver’s title race.

The other major change is with Controlled cautions that will be used at Iowa Speedway, World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. This procedure includes restrictions on tire changes and refueling to prevent teams from hiring specialized pit crews. The controlled caution procedure will not be in effect for weekends where either series is with the Cup Series.

The rules are as follows:

Each team will consist of eight pit crew members. This includes four to service the car, one fueler, and one driver assistant.
On oval tracks, teams may add fuel and change two tires per pit stop.
On road courses, teams may add fuel or change four tires per pit stop.
Restarts under caution will be in the following order:

Cars that did not pit.
Cars that pitted one time, followed by two times.
Free Pass, Wave Around vehicles, Penalty vehicles.

Teams involved in incidents are allowed to change four tires at once to avoid damaging the vehicle.
Penalties are as follows:

A team must restart on the tail end of the lead lap if they exceed the time limit on pit road or they pit other than the designated lap.
A team must serve a two-lap penalty if they change all four tires and add fuel on any pit stop, change tires under green (unless approved by NASCAR for damage caused by an incident), or perform a four-tire change on any pit stop (Iowa and Gateway only).

Check out some of our other DFS Army NASCAR content for the 2020 season!!!

This will conclude the 2020 Truck Series Preview. I hope you enjoyed it and picked up some extra knowledge to help going into the new season. If you would like to follow me on twitter you can @Larkin8. Most importantly I hope you will join us at the DFS Army and become a VIP member. Join today and use my promo code LARKIN for 20% off membership