Toni Breidinger has struggled to qualify when she's been entered in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races this year, posting three DNQs in her first six appearances of the 2026 season.
She was slated to drive the No. 27 Chevrolet for Rackley WAR at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend, which she drove five times earlier in the year. However, the team moved her to their full-time entry, the No. 26 Chevrolet, and moved full-time driver Dawson Sutton to the No. 27 truck instead.
The move was made not only because of how the qualifying metric is set up, inherently giving Breidinger a better chance to actually make it into the race, but because of the fact that five spots are awarded based on owner points, behind the 31 drivers who qualify on speed.
Toni Breidinger won't compete at New Hampshire, despite qualifying
Breidinger ultimately did make it in via one of the five provisional spots, since the No. 27 team entered 26th in the owner standings. However, because of a brake issue in practice, Sutton did not qualify the No. 26 truck, and as a part-time truck, it had no way to lock in via the owner standings.
As a result, Sutton has been moved back into the No. 27 truck for Saturday afternoon's race, and Breidinger won't actually get to compete after all.
Despite needing to rely on one of the five owner points provisional spots, Breidinger did actually post the 36th-fastest qualifying speed of the 41 trucks on the entry list, of which 39 turned qualifying laps.
Having said that, given Sutton's average qualifying position this year of 23rd, it's not unreasonable to assume she would have been 37th fastest had he actually been able to post a lap. But even if Sutton had qualified as one of the fastest 31, Breidinger still would have been in via one of those provisional spots.
Instead, she won't get to compete at all, and Sutton is set to drive the truck he's driven all year anyway. Funny how that works, after all the strategy behind the shift for this weekend.
Interestingly, one of the drivers who was quicker than Breidinger was, Team Reaume's Luke Baldwin, also failed to qualify because he was not in the top 31 and could not fall back on owner points. However, he too is set to race after the team's full-time driver, Frankie Muniz, opted to give up his seat. Muniz qualified well slower than Baldwin but got in via the owner points provisional.
Both Sutton and Baldwin are set to drop to the rear of the field at the start of the race because of the driver change.
Beyond this weekend, Breidinger currently has two more starts lined up for his year. She is set to compete for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing at Phoenix Raceway in mid-October and then return to Rackley WAR for the race at Talladega Superspeedway the following weekend. As of now, she is set to drive Rackley WAR's No. 26 truck at Talladega.
Tune in to Fox Sports 1 at 1:30 p.m. ET this afternoon for the live broadcast of the Team EJP 175 from New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss it!
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