“It Taught Me a Lot” – Zane Smith Reflects on How His Cup Debut Has Helped His NASCAR Truck Campaign

Without a doubt, Zane Smith has been enjoying a fantastic 2022 season. The driver is right in the hunt for the 2022 Truck Series championship, and recently made his Cup Series debut. In addition to that, he has racked up three Truck wins in the current campaign, adding to his other three wins in 2020 and 2021.

Currently, the #38 Front Row Motorsports driver has a 58-point lead in the standings. However, he has to fight off John Hunter Nemechek and Stewart Friesen. Despite finishing 13th at Pocono, it was enough to see him clinch the regular season championship.

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Admittedly, this is still shy of last year’s performance where he racked up 14 Top 10 finishes. Though he drew plenty of eyeballs when he made his first foray into the Cup Series. This was because he substituted for Chris Buescher in the #17 Roush Fenway Keselowski car at the Worldwide Technology Raceway. In the race, he finished in a fine 17th place and Smith firmly believes that that was the catalyst to his surge of form.

What did Zane Smith say about his excellent campaign?

He confessed, “I felt like it taught me a lot in the areas where you need to be good at the little things. Because those little things are what equal race wins. And so I feel like since then, I’ve been able to be probably more consistent, and I feel like putting together those four weeks of really good consistency of — I think my worst finish is third. I feel like that’s what has gotten me in this position and the points-wise for the regular season.”

So far, Zane Smith has been a picture of consistency, with Top 10 finishes in nearly every race. The only outliers were Las Vegas, where he was disqualified, Texas, and the recently concluded Pocono, where he was 13th.

According to him, he has learned a lot from that single Cup race and feels like a better driver. Being in the Cup car was such a massive culture shock for him that whatever he was good at in the Truck Series, was the opposite at the Cup level.

Admittedly 17th place is a bit disappointing for some. However, given that it was his first race, he was not focused on the end result. Many were reassuring him that all that he had to focus on was simply finishing the race.

Teammate and co-owner Brad Keselowski was proud of him and had plenty of faith in the driver, and it showed.

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