Four Cup drivers will participate in this weekend’s Truck Series race on dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Joey Logano and Harrison Burton all return to the series in an attempt to better prepare for Sunday’s Cup race. After last year’s debut of Bristol dirt, this weekend marks just the second time since 1970 that NASCAR has taken the Cup Series to a track with a dirt surface. However, the Truck Series competed at Eldora Speedway, a half-mile dirt track, from 2013-2019. In addition to Bristol’s dirt race in 2021, the series also added an event at the storied Knoxville Speedway in Iowa last July and returns this year on June 18.
Elliott, Cup’s four-time reigning Most Popular Driver, will drive the No. 7 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, following a recent trend set by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman and William Byron. Bowman piloted the truck at Circuit of the Americas and finished 25th after last-lap issues took him out of the top five, and Byron won last week at Martinsville Speedway.
“Driving the No. 7 Chevy Silverado at Bristol this weekend is definitely something I’m looking forward to,” Elliott, a three-race winner in Trucks, said in a team release. “These trucks always look like a lot of fun to race on dirt, and this team has had some great runs this year and put together a solid program in a short amount of time. I’m excited to see what we can go out there and do on Saturday night.”
Dillon won the 2011 Truck Series championship and has gone to victory lane seven times in a truck. He will drive the No. 20 Chevrolet for Young’s Motorsports this weekend but is no stranger to success on dirt, winning the inaugural Eldora Dirt Derby in 2013.
Joey Logano last competed in the Truck Series in 2015, a one-off race at Martinsville Speedway which he won for Brad Keselowski Racing. He returns Saturday in the No. 54 Ford for David Gilliland Racing with sponsorship from Planet Fitness.
Joining him at DGR this week will be Harrison Burton, who will drive the No. 17 Ford at Bristol. Burton made all 38 of his prior series starts driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, including one full season in 2019. His best finish in the series is third, a mark he hit six times in his Truck career, including twice at Iowa Speedway.
Burton says that “other than trucks,” his dirt experience is “pretty minimal.
“I ran some quarter midget races when I was like 9 in the dirt. That doesn’t really apply. Other than the truck stuff, I’ve done pretty much none.”
Other current Cup drivers with dirt wins in the Truck Series include Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe, who all won at Eldora. Martin Truex Jr. won the truck race at Bristol last spring.
