Why Isn't the Truck Series Going Back to Iowa Too? (2024)

Short track fans rejoice, as Iowa Speedway is finally making its debut on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule this Sunday (June 16).

Xfinity Series fans also rejoice, as it will make its triumphant return in support of the Cup race on Saturday (June 15). It will be the first time Xfinity has returned to the 0.875-mile track since 2019. The ARCA Menards Series will also join in on the weekend, as it has made an annual trip to Iowa since 2006 (with the exception of 2014).

Craftsman Truck Series fans … well, you’re out of luck. The Truckers will not be returning to Iowa, at least this year.

The Truck Series, along with the Xfinity Series, were regular visitors to Newton for standalone races at the short track. The Truck Series started racing there in 2009, just a few years after the track opened. The Xfinity Series followed suit in 2011 but the track failed to receive a Cup race.

Generally, the racing was really good, leaving midwestern fans yearning even more for a Cup date. Unfortunately, when COVID-19 shut down the world, NASCAR needed to put together a schedule upon return to normalcy that was feasible to accomplish in a narrow timespan. That meant lowa was left off of the Xfinity and Truck schedules.

However, until this year, NASCAR had not returned to lowa since 2019, which is odd when you consider that 2019 was also the year that NASCAR gained ownership of lowa. Regardless, lowa is finally getting its Cup date, bringing Xfinity with it, and ARCA will tag its annual visit on the front end of the weekend.

But the Truck Series did not receive the same invite as Xfinity did to return.

It absolutely should be returning too.

As mentioned earlier, the Truck Series was crucial to giving lowa its lone NASCAR racing for two years. The good racing there brought Xfinity to Newton as well two years later. The shared spotlight didn’t stop the Truckers from putting on great shows, including its last two races to date in 2018 and 2019.

Hometown hero Brett Moffitt (born in nearby Grimes, lowa) won both races, but both times were under crazy circ*mstances. In 2018, Moffitt was leading on the final lap when Noah Gragson attempted a video game slide job in turns 3 and 4. Because he drove so deep into the corner, Gragson slid up across Moffitt’s nose and couldn’t gather it up before sailing into the outside wall, allowing Moffitt to go back by and win at his home track.

The following year, in 2019, Moffitt won a race where he didn’t even cross the line in first. Ross Chastain actually won the race, but failed post-race inspection, handing the win to Moffitt. This was the first race across any of NASCAR’s premier series’ that a winner had been disqualified since the rule had been changed from ‘encumbered wins’ (remember that term?).

Also in that 2019 race Johnny Sauter and Austin Hill butted heads, leading to Sauter’s one-race suspension after the race.

Not to mention, once lowa was taken off the schedule, the Truck Series became the only source of racing for lowans when Knoxville Raceway was added to the schedule for 2021 and 2022. Those races … happened (probably the best way I can sum them up), and they had served as the most recent form of NASCAR racing in lowa until this weekend.

I know that nobody owes anybody anything these days, but now that Iowa finally has its Cup date, why wouldn’t NASCAR bring back both of its series that helped put the track on the NASCAR map? And for a series that attempted to stay loyal to the state after 2019, it seems like a gut punch for the Truckers to be left out of what’s shaping up to be a great weekend.

An argument could be made that with ARCA also joining in on the weekend that there’s no room for the Truck Series. That argument might hold some merit if it weren’t for the fact that the Truck Series has held doubleheaders with both ARCA and Xfinity as recently as this season.

Iowa has had lights for over a decade, hosting many night races in its history. There absolutely could’ve been an opportunity to host either the Truck Series or Xfinity Series on Saturday afternoon; then, whichever series didn’t run in the afternoon could run Saturday evening.

It would also give fans who had been hoping and praying for years for a Cup race in Iowa to not only get that, not only get the Xfinity and Truck Series back, but to get four races in one weekend.

It also seems wild that the Truck Series isn’t returning because at one point, it had two dates in Newton. NASCAR liked the show it put on at Iowa so much that it decided to give it a second date for a couple of years. It makes the move to not send the Truckers back at all even more mind-boggling.

While Moffitt will get to compete at his home track this weekend in a one-off Xfinity start with Joe Gibbs Racing, it’s unfortunate that the 2018 Truck Series champion won’t be able to take laps in a truck there again. He has a part-time deal with TRICON Garage and could’ve had a chance to get a hat trick in wins at the Rusty Wallace-designed track.

Plus, having a race at Iowa would help give the Truck Series more races in its incredibly light schedule. A few years ago, I wrote that the Truck Series schedule is way too short compared to the Xfinity and Cup Series schedules. Even if those series shorten their schedules, the Truck Series still needs a few races to bolster its schedule and solidify itself as the third-tier NASCAR series.

Perhaps there’s a chance that the Trucks return in 2025. Maybe it gets a standalone date (boy, that would be fantastic) in the future.

But to not let the series take part in a historic weekend for a track it helped grow is not just mind-boggling, but borderline unacceptable.