MARTINSVILLE, Va. – All on-track activities were washed out on Friday at Martinsville Speedway, after soaking rains moved in during the early-morning hours and continued throughout the day.
NASCAR officials made the announcement just before 3 p.m. ET at the .526-mile, paper clip-shaped oval.
Two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practice sessions were scheduled to be run, at noon and 2 p.m., respectively. Now, Truck Series competitors will look ahead to qualifying on Saturday morning.
Thirty-five trucks are entered for this weekend’s Texas Roadhouse 200, meaning three trucks will be sent home before the green flag ever drops on the 200-lap race, the final short-track event of the year for NASCAR’s third-highest series.
Saturday will mark the opening race of the round of six in the Truck Series playoffs, where Johnny Sauter, Brett Moffitt, Noah Gragson, Justin Haley, Grant Enfinger and Matt Crafton will look to secure their respective places in the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway in November.
Gragson enters the weekend third in points and spent his day staying as low-key as possible.
“I’m just focused on this weekend and controlling what I can control. The rest will happen however it happens,” Gragson noted. “I’m just laying low, keeping my heart rate down and relaxing. There’s not a whole lot to do in this rain. The real test comes for 200 laps tomorrow.”
Kyle Benjamin, the spring runner-up at Martinsville, feels that the lack of practice will actually advantage him and his DGR-Crosley team this weekend.
“Having a good history here helps, and I think we’ll have a shot with how things are set up,” said Benjamin. “We have the same truck as we did here last time … everything’s going to plug in the same, and I think we should be pretty close to where we were right off the green flag for everything Saturday.”
Qualifying for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series kicks off at 10 a.m. Saturday morning.