Did NASCAR’s first trip to Lime Rock work out?

Lime Rock Park is one of the most iconic sports car circuits in America. Open since 1957, the Connecticut track is best known for hosting series like Trans-Am and IMSA along with vintage car racing.

But how does the historic venue fare with giant stock-bodied pickup trucks? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be not too good.

On Saturday, Lime Rock hosted a NASCAR national series for the first time as the Craftsman Truck Series came to town. Alas, it might also be the only time unless the track owners either have a multi-year contract lined up or a very convincing pitch to NASCAR as fans were treated to an extraordinarily dull racing product. Corey Heim was probably the only satisfied customer as he led a whopping 99 of 100 laps from the pole to score the victory.

On paper, Lime Rock should be an ideal road course for stock cars. It is filled with elevation changes, is fairly short for a road racing venue at just 1.53 miles (2.462 km), and heavily consists of long straightaways with sweeping corners rather than technical. Cam Waters described it as a “fast and flowing road course” similar to what is in the Supercars Championship in Australia. What is now the ARCA Menards Series East even raced at Lime Rock annually for nearly two decades without much issue.

However, a NASCAR Truck is much heavier than the average sports car and ARCA vehicle. Drivers struggled to find overtaking opportunities and the straightaways turned out to be far slimmer than thought. Others also felt the lack of live pit stops did not help: standalone Truck races like Lime Rock instead have mandated stops in which the running order and lap count are frozen, meaning Heim did not lose any positions when he pitted.

“This was a tough track to gain any track position, in all honesty,” opined Jack Wood. “It is so narrow that you really had to keep your mistakes to a minimum or none or you would be forced backwards very quickly.”

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Heim’s team-mate Giovanni Ruggiero, who finished third, described it as a “long race for us. It was super hard to pass the whole time. I didn’t have track position. We tried working on our First Auto Group Tundra and made it a little bit better but just struggled being tight.”

Arguably the most exciting part came with ten laps to go when Matt Mills‘ truck stalled, setting up a restart. For the only time on Saturday, Heim did not lead a lap as Layne Riggs was the first truck to cross the start/finish line coming to the green flag, though Heim quickly got by him and drove off.

Some drama ensued soon after when various trucks went through the grass, though most might attribute that to the Truck Series being the third tier filled with inexperience than anything.

Had Riggs not led the single lap, the LiUNA! 150 would have been the sixth time a Truck Series event had zero lead changes. All five instances happened during the series’ infancy in the 1990s: Mike Skinner led every lap at Portland and Indianapolis en route to the inaugural championship, Ron Hornaday did so that year at Sonoma, Skinner repeated at IRP the following year, then Hornaday at Bristol in 1997. Christian Eckes also led all 150 laps at Nashville in 2024, but did not start on the pole so that race saw a leader change.

At least the grid was interesting?

For a race that was frankly a stinker, the field still saw plenty of new personalities taking part. It is not uncommon for a NASCAR road race to see “ringers” with circuit racing experience take part, and Lime Rock being the first road course of the 2025 Truck season made it a prime opportunity for some surprises.

Waters is easily the most notable example. The Supercars regular, who currently sits fourth in points, came to America between races as he wanted to gain some more stock car experience; he ran two Truck oval races in 2024 as well as an ill-fated Cup Series début. Lime Rock would prove to be a solid affair for the Aussie as he finished fifth for his maiden stock car top ten.

IMSA star and Le Mans winner Jordan Taylor made his Truck Series début, returning to NASCAR for the first time since 2023. Expectations were high for the four-time IMSA champ, and he seemed to prove it early on when he qualified second. However, he spent the day chasing Heim before the Lap 95 fracas relegated him to 20th.

“I felt like our Gainbridge Chevrolet definitely had top-three speed all day, but I’m not sure we really had much for the top-two guys,” Taylor commented. “On the second-to-last restart, we got shoved by the #38 truck (Chandler Smith) and lost two positions back to fifth, then the #38 didn’t try to make the corner and drove through us, alongside half the field. In the end, it was a disappointing day, but it was nice that we at least got some stage points for the team’s battle to make the owner’s playoffs.”

Taylor’s team-mate Thomas Annunziata, who usually races in Trans-Am, had a modest showing in his maiden Truck race. While he felt he had a “top ten, if not a top five truck,” the same scramble kept him from making much headway and he settled for 15th. Later in the day, he won the ARCA Menards Series support race.

16-year-old phenom Ben Maier arrived in NASCAR with experience in the Trans-Am Series as well as Stadium Super Trucks and Nitrocross, all disciplines that require plenty of road racing savviness. His truck’s engine shut off between the first and second stages, forcing a tow truck to give him a push-start, but otherwise managed to bring it home in 18th.

William Lambros, who’s raced at Lime Rock since he was a teenager before working as a racing instructor there for the Skip Barber Racing School (Lime Rock’s former owner), finished 27th in his first NASCAR event.

At the bottom of the order were Wesley Slimp and Alex Labbé. Slimp is a Porsche Carrera Cup North America driver whose NASCAR début was overshadowed by a fire in practice before an ignition problem knocked him out of the race. Labbé is a longtime Xfinity Series regular and former Pinty’s Series champion who’s become a journeyman due to a lack of funding, and his Truck début ended with a rear gear failure.

Notably absent was Parker Kligerman, a Truck Series part-timer who co-owns Lime Rock Park and lobbied to get NASCAR to come. While he planned to race, he was recruited by TNT to cover the Cup Series at Atlanta that same day.

NASCAR 2025 LiUNA! 150 – Results