NASCAR’s truck racing series has been active for almost 30 years now. In that span, the circuit — now officially branded the Craftsman Truck Series — has transformed from a sort of fringe race weekend distraction to one of the premiere race weekend events during the NASCAR season. While the heavily modified pickup trucks can’t quite match the top speed of their stock car counterparts, they still bring the heat on race day, and can reportedly top out at 180 mph or more in the right track conditions.
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For the record, Craftsman Truck Series vehicles are no joke in the horsepower department either, with some of the vehicles capable of producing 450 BHP, which converts to roughly 444 hp by Stateside measurements. With the likes of Ford, Chevy, and Toyota typically dominating race day on NASCAR’s stock car circuit, it should hardly come as a surprise that those major manufacturers are also the main players in the Craftsman Truck Series. In fact, they are the only three manufacturer’s fielding trucks on race day, as Dodge exited the circuit a while back.
Just like the souped-up builds those brand’s send to NASCAR tracks from one week to the next, the “win on Sunday sell on Monday” mentality carries over to the Craftsman Truck Series, with Chevy, Ford, and Toyota fielding modified versions of their best-selling pickups in the celebrated Silverado, F-150, and Tundra, respectively. And yes, Dodge was racing its best-selling Ram when it was still racing trucks.
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Chevy has won nearly half of NASCAR’s truck series titles to date
Now that you know which trucks Chevy, Ford, and Toyota are running in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series, we’d wager there’s another question you’re dying to ask, and that’s which of the big three manufacturer’s has won the most Truck Series titles. That is, after all, one of the questions most asked of NASCAR’s stock car racing circuit, which has been around for considerably longer than the truck series. The standings are the same in terms of titles between NASCAR’s stock car circuit and its truck series. Chevrolet leads all manufacturers on the cup front.
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Chevy is, of course, the all-time winningest automaker on the main circuit, and that standing is not likely to change anytime soon. It’s the same for the Craftsman Truck Series, with Chevy builds taking home a whopping 14 titles in the 29 years since its founding. Toyota currently sits in second place, logging an impressive nine Truck Series title wins mostly with its long-running Tundra build. Despite the fact that Ford essentially birthed the era of the American pickup truck, the iconic manufacturer has not found much success with its best-selling F-150 on the race track. While Ford has won the last two Craftsman Truck Series titles, it’s claimed just four overall since the circuit made its NASCAR debut.
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As for Dodge, the brand behind the Hemi-powered Dodge Ram hasn’t been racing the truck on NASCAR tracks for about a decade now. It would seem Dodge wasn’t exactly dominant during its time on the circuit, taking home only one pair of titles in the 2004 and 2005 seasons respectively.
