Q&A with ZANE SMITH

Chatting With The Champion

BY JARED TURNER

Zane Smith enters the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season with high expectations. Not only is he confident he can become a back-to-back champion, he’s also getting his feet wet in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Smith was a highly touted prospect as a teenager, and he’s now enjoying the success that NASCAR industry insiders believed he would have. When he first entered NASCAR’s top-three divisions, he went straight to the Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports and stood out in just 10 starts. The success at JRM led him to GMS Racing, where he finished runner-up in the Truck Series two years in a row.

Then, Smith left the Chevrolet camp to compete with Ford and Front Row Motorsports, a move that gave him a clear path to the Cup Se ries. Now, a year later, Smith is a NASCAR Crafts man Truck Series champion, and the team is also running him in a part-time Cup Series entry.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO FINALLY BE A TRUCK SERIES CHAMPION? It means so much that I can’t even describe it. People don’t understand how hard it is to get to the Championship 4. It’s really hard to capitalize on that day. People are like, “You just have to be better than the other three.” But typically, those other three are second, third and fourth. It comes down to winning a race. You have to go into the race with a mindset of this is a must-win. That’s what we did and we fully executed. That’s what makes me most proud.

YOU WERE CONFIDENT BEFORE YOU EVEN DROVE A FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS TRUCK. WHAT MADE YOU SO CONFIDENT RIGHT AWAY?

I knew we would have the opportunity to win races. It’s so hard to go into a new team and say, “We’re going to win a championship.” You can’t say that if you haven’t won them in the past. I was waiting to see what the year brought and we fired our year off with a win at Daytona.

That brought so much momentum, locking us in the playoffs right away. We followed up with a few more wins right after that. We won the regular-season championship and each and every weekend, we contended. It says so much about our race team in general. I’m just extremely happy we finished our year off as strong as we could.

YOUR CUP SERIES DEBUT CAME AT WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY RACEWAY IN 2022, TOO. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO GET THE CALL FROM RFK?

That was wild, for sure. Opportunities happen when you least expect them. I was packing my bag and just told my fiancée that she should probably stay home to watch the dog this weekend since we were in the middle of our eight-week stretch. I just got a random phone call. It happened to be from Brad Keselowski, and he just came right out with it.

It was such a cool experience, and it’s something I’ve dreamed about since I was a little kid. I’m so happy I was able to get there. I wish I had my family and friends there – I had some, but it was so last minute and hard to get there. I did exactly what I wanted to do, and I felt like I learned so much. I was pretty excited about a 17th-place finish. I came down pit road, seeing how excited everyone else was, and I realized how big of a deal that was.

The Cup Series deal is tough, as it should be. To come home 17th with a brand-new team in a seat I barely fit in, I was happy about that.

THAT WAS ESSENTIALLY A WARM UP FOR 2023’S PART-TIME CUP SERIES SCHEDULE. HOW EXCITED ARE YOU FOR THAT?

I’m pretty stoked. It’s going to be a lot of fun, especially because I’m doing it with my truck team – my crew chief, my engineer, my car chief – everybody who’s on my truck will be on my Cup Series car as well. We’re going to be learning together. AFTER YOUR CUP SERIES DEBUT, WAS THERE A SENSE OF ADDED CONFIDENCE, KNOWING YOU CAN RUN WITH THE TOP TEAMS?

Not initially. Brad Keselowski is probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. The advice he gave me went a long way. He said, “Hey, you have nothing to prove. You already proved it with me calling you.” Those 400 miles, I learned so much in bettering myself.

If you think you’re good on pit road, you’re not. If you think you’re good on restarts, no you’re not. When you feed yourself to the wolves like that, which I’ve done throughout my career since I was a little kid, you learn right away. I was thrown into the deep end. I’m super fortunate to have been raised that way, and I’m getting to experience that at an older age.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THIS YEAR’S CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES SEASON?

I don’t know, but we have a lot of momentum right now. It should be a really good year, but it’s going to be hard to match the year we had. We can’t rest on what we’ve done. We have to keep grinding. We have to be ready to execute. It’s going to be a busy year and it’s going to be tough. I really want to win back-to-back championships. I want to win the final Camping World Truck Series championship – like I did – and then win the return of the Craftsman Truck Series.

I’ve won on every type of race track our series brings besides a dirt track, and I have one attempt to do that this year. I want to win another regular-season championship and contend in the Championship 4.

Would

YOU

WANT TO GO TO THE XFINITY SERIES AGAIN OR JUMP TO CUP IN 2024?

Back in the day, yes, the layout was Truck, Xfinity and Cup. People don’t realize now that the Cup Series car is so far apart from anything – team owners will tell you this – it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to go to Xfinity Series unless you’re already in it.

You’re almost racing time. I don’t think it’s any tougher and if anything, I think over the last couple of years, the Truck Series has been tougher. The Xfinity Series – at times – is tougher than the Truck Series. There are times when Xfinity has an absolutely stacked field with most of Hendrick in the field. The trucks have that, as well, with Kyle (Busch) and Ross (Chastain). My experience in that one race was that it raced more like a truck than anything with the dirty air side of things.

Now that I have that Truck Series championship, one day, I’m going to want to chase a Xfinity Series championship. I know there are a few guys wanting to do that – Kyle and Martin Truex possibly – who will go back and try to win all three championships. That’s a main goal of mine, but I’m not in a huge hurry to get to Cup. I’m having so much fun and I’m taking advantage of my age. I’m simply enjoying life and collecting trophies.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE SO MANY DIFFERENT SPONSORS AT FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS?

I’ve been with some great race teams and Front Row certainly fits in that category. It’s been cool to see our partnerships grow throughout the year. Front Row is obviously one of the smaller teams, and I guess you’d consider it one of the underdog teams. That’s what makes it cool when we accomplish what we did last year, or with what Michael McDowell has done.

It’s just been really cool to see how excited the sponsors are to be part of it. Everyone wants to be part of an underdog story. I guess we’re an underdog to the naked eye, but the effort of the people who grind here are just as good as anyone else. I’ll put them up against anyone else, especially with the team that I have on my truck.