After more than two years of preparation and planning, the inaugural NASCAR National Series weekend at Naval Base Coronado has finally arrived, and the excitement meter in San Diego is pegged — but so is the level of difficulty.
The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series was the first division to get on-track and explore the 16-turn, 3.4-mile street course on Friday, and those drivers (who vary greatly in experience level) definitely found their fair share of troubles, with 17 of 35 sustaining some kind of damage.
Kaden Honeycutt, the winner of the Truck Series’ most-recent road course event at Watkins Glen, was one of 17 drivers to sustain some kind of damage, doing so by hitting the wall at the exit of Turn 15. It didn’t hinder his lap, though, and the TRICON Garage native went on to score the pole.
“I don’t know if anybody caught that, unfortunately, the right-rear is kind of messed up, but I think we’ll be able to fix it, as long as they fix that seam in the ‘f’ of Safelite,” Honeycutt told FOX Sports. “Unfortunate mistake on my end at the end of the lap, looking at the board, I really wish I didn’t attack it that hard now, but just the racer in me goes and gets everything I can out of the truck.”
Honeycutt was able to lay down the fastest lap time of the weekend in qualifying, with a 134.782-second (2:14.782) lap, winning the pole by four tenths of a second over Layne Riggs — who won the Truck Series’ only prior event on a street course earlier this year at St. Petersburg.
Chandler Smith, teammate to Layne Riggs at Front Row Motorsports, will roll from third place in Friday’s Navy 250, after his qualifying lap was a second-and-a-half slower than Honeycutt’s pole-winning time.
Jimmie Johnson, a seven-time champion of the NASCAR Cup Series, will make his second career start in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series at Naval Base Coronado and will start from fourth in the No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for TRICON Garage.
Grant Enfinger found the outside wall in Turn 16 during the first 40-minute practice for the NASCAR Truck Series, but rebounded to round out the top-five in time trials. Gio Ruggiero, Andres Perez de Lara, Ty Majeski, Landen Lewis, and Parker Kligerman rounded out the top-10.
Christian Eckes, Justin Marks, Daniel Hemric, Adam Andretti, Brenden Queen, and Tanner Gray all failed to post a lap time in qualifying, either suffering an incident too severe in practice to turn a qualifying lap or running into problems in qualifying.
An accident in Turn 15 for Stewart Friesen, who qualified 22nd, ended the session prematurely.
A full list of the 17 drivers that suffered some kind of wall contact between the two 40-minute practice sessions and the two-round qualifying, include: #5 Adam Andretti, #7 Connor Mosack, #9 Grant Enfinger, #10 Corey LaJoie, #11 Kaden Honeycutt, #12 Brenden Queen, #15 Tanner Gray, #17 Gio Ruggiero, #19 Daniel Hemric, #20 Brendan Gaughan, #44 Andres Perez De Lara, #45 Landen Lewis, #52 Stewart Friesen, #62 Kaz Grala, #77 Justin Marks, #91 Christian Eckes, and #99 Ben Rhodes.
The Navy 250 will take place Friday at 7:00 PM ET on FOX Sports 1.
