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  • TRICON Garage reveals crew chief lineup for 2025 Truck season

    TRICON Garage reveals crew chief lineup for 2025 Truck season

    TRICON Garage took to social media to reveal its crew chief lineup for the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season.

    The host of names that will occupy TRICON’s crew chief lineup for next season features the return of four names from the previous season and one new name returning atop the pit box for the first time in two seasons.

    Beginning in 2025, Jake Hampton will work as a crew chief for TRICON’s No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro team. The No. 1 entry will be fielded as the team’s “all-star” entry for a third consecutive season and piloted by multiple competitors who haven’t been named. Hampton had previously served as a crew chief for TRICON’s Nos. 15 and 17 entries through 11 of the remaining 12 events on the 2023 schedule.

    For the list of familiar names returning in 2025, Derek Smith and Scott Zipadelli will remain as crew chiefs for TRICON’s Nos. 5 and 11 Toyota entries, respectively. Smith, who spent the previous two seasons working with driver Dean Thompson, will be paired with Toni Breidinger, the latter of whom replaces Thompson and is set to make her first full-time campaign in the Truck Series after she competed on a full-time ARCA Menards Series basis for Venturini Motorsports in 2024. Meanwhile, Zipadelli, the 2018 Truck Series championship-winning crew chief who enters his third consecutive season with TRICON, will remain paired with driver Corey Heim. Together, the duo of Zipadelli and Heim have notched nine victories, five poles, 26 top-five results, 37 top-10 results, the 2023 Truck Series Regular Season Championship and two Championship 4 appearances, where they settled in the runner-up spot in the 2024 driver’s standings.

    Lastly, crew chiefs Jeff Hensley and Jerame Donley will return to TRICON as both will also switch teams in 2025. Hensley, a veteran crew chief with 22 Truck victories who first joined TRICON and worked atop the No. 17 pit box for driver Taylor Gray a year ago, will transition to TRICON’s No. 15 Toyota team and work with Tanner Gray, Taylor’s older brother. As a result, Donley, who first joined TRICON in 2023 to crew chief the No. 15 entry and Tanner Gray, will assume Hensley’s former position atop the No. 17 pit box for newcomer Gio Ruggiero, the latter of whom is set to make his first full-time campaign in the Truck Series after spending this past season competing in the ARCA Menards Series East division for Venturini Motorsports.

    This past season, Donley was replaced by Jason Burdett at the No. 15 team before the seven-race Playoff stretch. However, he did work as the crew chief for the No. 1 entry piloted by William Sawalich for the remaining three scheduled events.

    In addition to the crew chief lineup, Matt Puccia, a three-time race-winning crew chief in the Cup Series, will remain as TRICON’s competition director for a third consecutive season.

    The 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season is set to mark TRICON Garage’s third season of existence since being rebranded from David Gilliland Racing and changing manufacturers from Ford to Toyota. Since 2023, the organization has notched nine victories, all of which have been recorded by driver Corey Heim, crew chief Scott Zipadelli and the No. 11 team. In addition, the organization has also recorded a combined eight poles, 48 top-five results, 150 top-10 results and 1,467 laps led. This past season, Heim and Taylor Gray represented TRICON in the Playoffs as the organization continues to pursue its first championship in the Truck Series division.

    TRICON Garage’s 2025 Truck Series season is scheduled to commence at Daytona International Speedway on February 14 at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • TRICON Garage unveils 2023 crew chief & personnel lineup

    TRICON Garage unveils 2023 crew chief & personnel lineup

    With the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season nine days away from commencing, TRICON Garage put the final pieces of its rebranded puzzle together by revealing its crew chief and personnel lineup for its fleet of Toyota Tundra TRD Pros and drivers.

    For starters, Seth Smith will remain at TRICON to serve as a crew chief for the No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro that will compete in select events and be piloted by multiple competitors that include Jason White for the season opener at Daytona International Speedway next Friday and newcomer William Sawalich, who will make his debut at Martinsville Speedway in April. The 34-year-old Smith from Troutman, North Carolina, has achieved two Truck career victories to his resume, both of which occurred during the previous season with Todd Gilliland at Knoxville Raceway and with Ryan Preece at Nashville Superspeedway.

    Next, Derek Smith, brother to Seth Smith, will be graduating to the Truck Series to assume the pit box of the No. 5 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro team that will be driven by Dean Thompson, who joins the organization as a full-time competitor after spending the previous season at Niece Motorsports. Smith makes his move to the Truck circuit with 31 ARCA Menards Series events as a crew chief to his resume. As a former crew chief for TRICON in the ARCA regions, he led veteran and TRICON’s owner David Gilliland to his first ARCA West career victory at Phoenix Raceway in 2020.

    New to the organization for this season is Scott Zipadelli, the 2018 Truck Series championship-winning crew chief from Newington, Connecticut. Zipadelli will lead the No. 11 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro that will be piloted by Corey Heim, the reigning Truck Series Rookie-of-the-Year recipient who notched his first two career victories during the previous season and is set to run his first full-time Truck season. Prior to TRICON, Zipadelli spent the previous six seasons at Hattori Racing Enterprises, where he notched 14 of his 15 career victories along with the 2018 title with Brett Moffitt. His other victory occurred at Michigan International Speedway in 2016 with Red Horse Racing and Moffitt. To go along with his success in the Truck circuit, Zipadelli has notched three Xfinity Series victories as a crew chief.

    Coming off his first campaign as a crew chief in the NASCAR Cup Series, Jerame Donley will embark on another new beginning for this season by becoming a full-time Truck Series crew chief for TRICON’s No. 15 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro that will be driven by Tanner Gray, who returns for a fourth full-time campaign at TRICON. Donley, a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, spent the majority of this past season as a crew chief for Ty Dillon and Petty GMS Motorsports. Previously, he was a nine-year engineer veteran for Chip Ganassi Racing and a former mechanic for Hendrick Motorsports.

    Lastly, Billy Wilburn will be returning to the Truck Series to serve as a crew chief for TRICON’s No. 17 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro team that will be piloted by rookie Taylor Gray in all but the first three scheduled events. The 56-year-old Wilburn from Tempe, Arizona, has called 196 NASCAR national touring series events as a crew chief. His lone victory occurred at Kentucky Speedway in June 2006 with David Gilliland, who notched his first Xfinity career win. With Gray missing the first three events due to age restrictions, Sammy Smith will be making his Truck debut at Daytona. It remains undetermined who will be driving the No. 17 entry for the following two events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March.

    In addition, veteran Matt Puccia will be joining TRICON Garage to assume the role of Competition Director. The 69-year-old Puccia from Watertown, New York, previously worked as a Director of Operations for Roush Fenway Racing and has called 269 Cup Series events as a crew chief for Roush from 2011 to 2018. During the span, he notched three career victories and three Playoff appearances, all with former veteran Greg Biffle, from 2012 to 2014.

    The 2023 season is set to mark a new beginning for TRICON Garage, which was rebranded from David Gilliland Racing and reunited with Toyota following a three-year partnership with Ford.

    With their lineup set, TRICON Garage is set to make its debut at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, which will commence a new season of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition. The event’s air time is set to occur at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • Greg Biffle ‘Very Proud of the Year’

    Greg Biffle ‘Very Proud of the Year’

    Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford for Roush Fenway Racing, was not just relieved when his NASCAR year-end banquet speech as the fifth place finishing driver was over. He was also “very proud of what we did this year.”

    Biffle and his team scored two wins in the season, with 12 top-five finishes and 21 top-ten finishes. He led the point standings, made the Chase, and had an average finish for the year of 10.2.

    “I was nervous at the beginning of this year because this was really a brand new team,” Biffle said. “It takes a while to get your legs under you.”

    “Out of seventeen guys, only three of them were same from the year previous,” Biffle continued. “And they were all hand-picked by Matt Puccia (crew chief).”

    “I figured we were going to have our challenges ahead of us,” Biffle said. “So to come out of the gate like we did and lead the points all the way through when the Chase started was amazing for me.”

    “I was really excited about that.”

    After a bit of a victory drought, Biffle scored his first win of the 2012 season at Texas Motor Speedway in the spring race, the Samsung Mobile 500. He went on to visit Victory Lane a second time in the Michigan 400 in late summer.

    “It was such a relief,” Biffle said of his Texas win. “And I was so excited.”

    “When you win there is so much emotion,” Biffle continued. “So much goes through you.”

    “I was more excited for the team and Matt Puccia for his first Cup win,” Biffle said. “And it was the first Cup win for more than half the guys on my team.”

    “I’ve won 17 or 18 times or however many,” Biffle continued. “It’s special to me each time you get there, but it’s neat every time to take people to Victory lane.”

    “And it was kind of a dry spell for me,” Biffle said. “So, it was nice to get back in there to Victory Lane.”

    Biffle, like most of the top-ten drivers, was honored to have finished fifth in the final point standings. But he was dreading his banquet speech, stating he just had to rely on the teleprompter to get through it.

    “I’ve got too much ADD so I had to use a teleprompter,” Biffle said. “I’ll talk about one thing and forget about what’s next.”

    “I’ve thought about trying to do bullet points on the teleprompter like ‘team’, ‘Jack Roush’, ‘thank the sponsors’, and ‘NASCAR’,” Biffle continued. “It just doesn’t work for me because I get rambling on and can’t transition to the next thing very well.”

    “I’m better off just to write a short and simple speech,” Biffle said. “I have to write the speech because I have to put it in my words, the way I say it, instead of trying to read something that’s unnatural.”

    “Then I do better with it.”

    In addition to the NASCAR festivities, Biffle also enjoyed his time in Vegas by bonding with some of his team over drinks and a little gambling.

    “I’ve had a lot of fun gambling and playing craps with some of the guys,” Biffle said. “Just enjoying the city, going out and enjoying a few drinks has been fun.”

    “Normally, when I’m racing, Monday I might have a beer or two sometimes,” Biffle continued. “But it’s nice to come here and enjoy the city and not have to get into the race car the next day.”

    While many of the drivers who have been trying their hands at the Vegas tables have lost some significant dollars, Biffle stated that he has been holding his own in the casino.

    “I’m about even, which means I won because I’m having a lot of fun and I’m doing it for free right now,” Biffle said. “I don’t have a lot of money to lose and I work very hard but I’m going to have a little fun.”

    “It’s like going to the amusement park and you’ve got to pay for it, but with this, you have the opportunity to win a little.”

    Of the new champion, Biffle admitted that he really did not know Brad Keselowski all that well. But he also admitted to feeling a certain kinship with the new young champion.

    “Brad’s been pretty busy,” Biffle said. “I’m looking forward to getting to know him a little bit better.”

    “We’ve done a few things or talked about doing a few things away from the track.”

    “I see a lot of myself in Brad,” Biffle said. “Brad wasn’t given anything.”

    “He didn’t have anyone paying the bills all the way for him,” Biffle continued. “He worked hard.”

    “I remember him at the race track when he was 14 or 15 years old helping his dad when his dad was running the Truck Series,” Biffle said. “So then Brad raced the Truck Series and Nationwide and got an opportunity to step into the 2 car.”

    “They weren’t fast right away but with time and hard work, they’ve gotten up on the stage,” Biffle continued. “That’s a credit to how hard he’s worked.’

    Just like the new champion, Biffle also intends to work hard in the 2013 season. And next year, he hopes to have an even more consistent season, especially with the new race car.

    “I want to be in the new Fusion every day,” Biffle said. “But there again, testing is limited.”

    “NASCAR is going to do a few tests at Charlotte,” Biffle continued. “But I don’t think we’ll get a lot of tests before we get going.”

    “Last year, we just weren’t as prepared and weren’t as ready,” Biffle said. “We went from a good group of tracks for us to something a little different and that’s what really caught us off guard.”

    “What I think we learned is that we won’t make that mistake in 2013, especially if we’re lucky enough to make the Chase next year.”