Zane Smith picked up right where he left off.
The 2022 Truck Series champion navigated a rather rhythmless race on Friday night en route to a a 2023 season-opening win on Friday night. Smith zoomed to the lead with about 35 laps to go, led for 11 laps, found himself in the lead when the race was officially called because of rain — and then took a damp trick to Victory Lane.
Smith will also run in the Daytona 500 on Sunday.
That makes the eighth win of Smith’s career and his third win at Daytona.
For a while on Friday night, drivers appeared to have trouble finding a rhythm. Rain and wrecks explained why:
▪ Stage 1 saw two separate weather cautions. The first lasted four laps; the second lasted three.
▪ The rain reappeared again late in Stage 2 and even prompted a three-minute red flag — but not before it caused an eight-car pile-up that knocked out Hailie Deegan, Dean Thompson and Clay Greenfield, among others. The end of Stage 2 saw some carnage, too: An incident on the backstretch knocked Parker Kligerman out despite a promising run and sent Stewart Friesen down five laps.
▪ Not much changed for the first half of Stage 3. Another wreck transpired after Rajah Caruth got loose on Turn 3 and collected a handful of drivers in the process, including Daniel Dye and Matt Dibenedetto — and then a steady shower prompted another red flag with 23 laps to go.
Then came the red flag. And then came the rain delay — ending the race at 11:12 p.m.
Alex Zietlow writes about NASCAR, Charlotte FC and the ways in which sports intersect with life in the Charlotte area for The Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the APSE, which awarded him with Top-10 finishes in the Beat Writing and Short Feature categories in its 2021 writing contest. He previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill from 2019-22.