Day On Nashville Trucks: ‘Never Been So Happy To Run Fifth’

Corey Day in action at Nashville Superspeedway. (Matthew Thacker/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

LEBANON, Tenn. – Corey Day hasn’t exactly hit the ground running in his part-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series adventure, but he certainly made a big splash in Friday night’s stop at Nashville Superspeedway.

Day put on the best performance of his brief Truck Series career by far, running inside the top 10 virtually all race long on the way to a fifth-place finish in the Rackley Roofing 200.

He spent all but two of the 150 laps inside the top 15 and averaged a top-five running position along the way, en route to the first top 10 of his Truck Series career, a huge milestone for the up-and-coming prospect.

Prior to Nashville, Day’s best finish was 15th twice, most recently at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway earlier this season.

The strong result comes in just Day’s 10th start in the Truck Series and his sixth with Spire Motorsports, for whom Day pilots the No. 7 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet on a part-time basis.

Day finished sixth in stage one and fourth in stage two before taking the checkered flag in fifth place, even picking up one lap led in the 200-mile event.

“It feels really good to put a full race together,” Day said afterward. “I’ve never been so happy to run fifth in my life.

“It’s great to give these [No.] 7 guys and Spire Motorsports a good finish because they deserve that for all the effort that’s gone into the year so far,” he continued. “I feel like I’ve been really close to some good days multiple times, but either haven’t gotten it right from my end or had some other things go wrong that were out of our control. But this was a really good day for us.”

Nashville boosts Day’s average finish to a 19.3 on the season and an even 20.0 for his career.

It’s all amid Day’s continuing transition onto the asphalt, a surface that he had never made a racing start on before last year. Day has also made two starts for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Day has excelled on dirt from his early days, with two wins in the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series to his name as well as nine victories in the Kubota High Limit Sprint Car Series, including two High Limit scores already this season.

Where he usually runs intense 30 or 40-lap features on the dirt, the transition to much longer, more measured racing on pavement has been an adjustment for Day.

“In sprint car racing … you don’t really maintain wide open [pace] from green to checkered, so I feel like I got that down tonight as far as saving some for late,” Day expressed. “I finally got that down to just be able to maintain and make moves when they’re there and not force the issue where it puts me in a bad spot.

“Hopefully this is the first of many [top fives] for me in this setting.”

Spire Motorsports is a Cup Series team on the rise with three full-time cars in NASCAR’s premier series, but also fields four entries in the Truck Series after purchasing the assets from Kyle Busch Motorsports at the end of 2023.

Day joined the squad’s two full-time drivers, the Nos. 71 and 77 of Rajah Caruth and Andrés Pérez de Lara, respectively, at Nashville. All-time Truck Series wins leader Kyle Busch drove the team’s fourth truck Friday night.

Caruth secured the win at Nashville after holding off Corey Heim and Layne Riggs in a late-race battle, with Day making it a pair of Spire entries in the top five.

The fifth-place finish is the best from the non-Cup Series drivers to pilot the No. 07 truck, showing some promise from the young Day as he seeks to continue rising through the ranks in the coming years.

Day’s next planned Truck Series start for Spire Motorsports is at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, a track which he has never visited before in any of NASCAR’s top three series.

Fans can catch Day’s attempt to build on his recent momentum on Friday night, July 25 at 8 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.