NASCAR Truck Series: Brett Moffitt wins 2018 championship

Brett Moffitt clinched the 2018 NASCAR Truck Series championship by winning the Championship 4 race, the Ford EcoBoost 200, at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

GMS Racing teammates Johnny Sauter and Justin Haley as well as Hattori Racing Enterprises’ Brett Moffitt and Kyle Busch Motorsports’ Noah Gragson ended the 2018 NASCAR Truck Series Championship 4 race, the Ford EcoBoost 200, at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a chance to win this year’s championship.

It was Moffitt who prevailed, and he did so by winning the 134-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida to become the first Truck Series champion to win the season finale since champion Jack Sprague won the season finale in the 1999 season.

Moffitt entered the 2018 season with one career Truck Series victory to his name. Over the course of the season, he multiplied his career win total by seven, as he racked up six victories throughout the year en route to winning the championship.

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The 26-year-old Grimes, Iowa native won four races in the 16-race regular season before winning two races in the three-round, seven-race playoffs. He won the regular season races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway and Michigan International Speedway.

While he did not win a race in the opening round of the playoffs, the round of 8, Moffitt won the round of 6 finale at ISM Raceway to clinch a berth in the Championship 4. He closed out the season with two consecutive victories, as he sealed the championship by winning the Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Moffitt’s championship-winning season was certainly not an easy one for him or his team, as there were several races for which the underfunded Hattori Racing Enterprises team struggled to find sponsorship. In fact, the race at Chicagoland that Moffitt ended up winning was a race that the team thought there was a chance they might have to miss due to a lack of funding.

But the team overcame adversity, fielded the #16 Toyota for Moffitt in each of the season’s 23 races and ended up propelling him to his first career Truck Series championship, which was also the team’s first Truck Series championship and their first championship in any series.

Gragson, Haley and Sauter ended up finished the season in second, third and fourth place in the championship standings, respectively. Gragson finished the season finale in third while Haley finished in eighth and Sauter finished in 12th. Throughout the course of the season, Gragson won one race while Haley won three and Sauter won six.

The NextEra Energy Resources 250 is scheduled to get 2019 NASCAR Truck Series season get underway on Friday, February 15, 2019. This race is set to be broadcast live from Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida on Fox Sports 1.