2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series


The 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series is the 26th season of the third highest stock car racing series sanctioned by NASCAR in North America. The season began at Daytona International Speedway with the NextEra Energy 250 on February 14. The regular season will end with the Corrigan Oil 200 at Michigan International Speedway on August 8. The NASCAR playoffs will end with the Lucas Oil 150 at Phoenix Raceway on November 6.
2020 marks the twelfth season for Camping World Holdings as the series' sponsor, with it being the second season under the Gander RV & Outdoors brand. In September 2019, Camping World announced a rebranding of Gander Outdoors stores as part of a shift in strategy, resulting in the stores also carrying recreational vehicle sales and service, henceforth the slight name change to reflect corporate changes.
The early season was headlined by incentives for any driver to beat Kyle Busch in four of the races he participated in. After Busch won the race at Las Vegas, the first of his five Truck starts in 2020, which was his seventh series start in a row where he won, Kevin Harvick and Gander RV & Outdoors CEO Marcus Lemonis each offered $50,000 for any full-time Cup Series regular if they were to finish higher than Busch in his remaining four starts of the year. The challenge spurred Cup drivers Chase Elliott and Erik Jones to run Truck races in an attempt to win the $100,000 bounty. Later, Halmar Friesen Racing owner Chris Larsen announced he would offer a different $50,000 bounty to any Truck Series regular who were to finish ahead of Busch in the upcoming races he would be competing in. Elliott would immediately beat Busch and win the bounty at Charlotte, which was the first race it was on the line. He donated half the prize money to Feed the Children, a quarter of it to the American Red Cross, and another quarter of it to Kyle and Samantha Busch's Bundle of Joy Foundation.
When the season was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drivers from all NASCAR series, including many Truck Series drivers, participated in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series during that time.

Teams and drivers

Complete schedule

Limited schedule

Changes

Teams

In NASCAR's first races back since the pandemic hit, there would be no practice or qualifying held so that teams would not need to bring additional crew members to the track and would not need to bring backup cars..
In the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series and Xfinity Series races that will be held without practice and qualifying, NASCAR announced that the field size temporarily will be expanded to a maximum of 40 vehicles each. The field will be set by a random draw, similar to NASCAR Cup Series.
On July 21, NASCAR announced that the remaining national series events on the 2020 schedule will be held without practice and qualifying.
On July 29, NASCAR announced further changes to the controlled caution procedure at World Wide Technology Raceway to make the pit stop rules similar to the original Truck Series rules from 1995-98.

Schedule

The schedule for the 2020 season was released on April 3, 2019.

Note: On the original schedule, the TTC races were supposed to be Richmond, Dover and Charlotte, but after COVID-19, that was no longer the case. On July 18, 2020, NASCAR announced that the challenge would still be done this season, and would now be at the Daytona Road Course, the rescheduled Dover race, and Gateway.

Broadcasting

In the United States, all races are aired live on TV by Fox NASCAR on FS1 and on Motor Racing Network on the radio.

Schedule changes

As with the Cup and Xfinity Series, NASCAR made numerous changes to the Truck Series schedule for the 2020 season. Of note is the return of the series to Richmond Raceway for the first time since 2005, which comes at the expense of the spring Martinsville date. Martinsville in exchange was given an Xfinity Series race for the first time after a hiatus for 24 of the last 25 years, which will be run in the fall on the same weekend as the Cup and Truck Series races there. Also, this will be the first season that the season finale will be at Phoenix Raceway while Homestead–Miami Speedway moves to March after Atlanta to become the fourth race of the season. Bristol is now the elimination race for the Round of 10 while the second Las Vegas race is the opener for the Round of 8 and Martinsville, now with only one date on the schedule, will end the Round of 8.

Schedule changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Race results

Drivers' championship

Bold – Pole position awarded by time. Italics – Pole position set by final practice results or rainout. * – Most laps led. 1 – Stage 1 winner. 2 – Stage 2 winner.

Owners' championship (Top 15)

Bold – Pole position awarded by time. Italics – Pole position set by final practice results or rainout. * – Most laps led. 1 – Stage 1 winner. 2 – Stage 2 winner.


Notes
  • GMS Racing bought the owners points from No. 34 Reaume Brothers Racing team to their new entry, the No. 24, in order to be locked into the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte and beyond. The Reaume No. 34 truck had only 5 points at that time, earned by Josh Bilicki when he finished 32nd at Las Vegas. The No. 34 also withdrew after practice at Daytona with Josh Reaume driving.

    Manufacturers' Championship

After 10 of 23 races
ManufacturerWinsPoints
1Toyota5370
2Ford3354
3Chevrolet2342

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