- Chase Purdy and the No. 4 Bama Buggies team head to Pocono Raceway for Saturday’s CRC Brakleen 150 continuing to battle for a spot in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoffs. Purdy enters the 60-lap event 13th in the Truck Series point standings, with just two races remaining in the regular season and 10 drivers qualifying for the playoffs. Over the last five races, Purdy has registered an average finish of 9.6 with three top-10 results. Unfortunately, during that span he has gone from being 40 points below the cutoff line to 49 points below. In the Truck Series’ last stop at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, he came from the 24th starting position to finish 13th.
- Across three Truck Series starts at Pocono, Purdy has an average finish of 15.7 with a best result of 11th coming in last year’s race. He also has competed in two ARCA Menards Series races at the Pennsylvania track, producing an average finish of 6.0 with a best result of third coming in the July race in 2018.
- The Mississippi native entered the 2022 season having never earned a top-five result in Truck Series action but has produced two across 14 races in his first season at Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM), including a career-best runner-up finish at Texas Motor Speedway in April. He has already produced a career-high seven top-10 finishes this season, after posting just two each in 2021 and 2022.
- Purdy will be trying to etch his mark in the KBM historical archives this weekend at Pocono as he looks to collect the organization’s 100th NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory. KBM owner-driver Kyle Busch collected KBM’s record-extending 99th career victory with his triumph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier this year leaving his organization one shy of the century mark. Overall, 18 different drivers have won at least one race behind the wheel of a KBM truck, led by Busch’s 47. Four drivers rank second on the list with seven victories: William Byron, Christopher Bell, Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek. Seven of KBM’s wins have come at Pocono. Starting with Busch’s win in 2015, a KBM driver has won seven of the last eight Truck Series events at Pocono, including Chandler Smith last year. The exception was Ross Chastain’s win in 2019.
- The 23-year-old driver is in his third full-time season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and first with KBM. He enters Friday’s race having totaled two top-five, 12 top-10 finishes, and 20 laps led across his 66 career Truck Series starts. Purdy finished 16th in the Truck Series final standings in 2022 after competing in 22 of the 23 events. He posted two top-10 finishes and nine laps led, with a season-best finish of seventh coming at Talladega Superspeedway in October.
- Jimmy Villeneuve is atop the pit box for Purdy and the No. 4 Chevrolet team this season. Prior to being promoted to crew chief for the 2023 season, Villeneuve had served as a Truck Chief at KBM since the 2017 season and in that role was a part of 18 wins, a driver’s championship with Christopher Bell in 2017 and the 2019 owner’s championship with the No. 51 team. Villeneuve has been on top of the pit box for two races at Pocono with a best result of 11th coming with Todd Bodine in the 2013 event.
- Bama Buggies, your one-stop shop for all the biggest names in powersports and utility vehicles, will be the primary sponsor on Purdy’s No. 4 Chevrolet Saturday and for the majority of the events on the 2023 schedule. They are Central Alabama’s powersports experts, serving as an authorized dealer of Polaris, Slingshot, and Seadoo.
What is the trickiest part of “The Tricky Triangle?
“I would definitely say the tunnel turn. It’s rough and I think every time that you go through it guys just kind of hold their breath because it’s hard to keep your truck stable — it gets really light through there.”
How does having such short stage lengths affect how the race plays out at Pocono?
“I think it puts a bigger emphasis on qualifying. It’s important to put down a good lap because you don’t want to get behind the eight ball before the race even starts. You don’t want to have to play strategy to get yourself track position and try to contend; you want to be able to contend from the drop of the green flag. In a situation like we are in, we need to go out there and run up front, lead laps and try everything that we can to put ourselves in a position to win the race.”
KBM PR
