Truck series evolving, this time into youth

In the NASCAR hierarchy and chain of command, the Camping World Truck Series that made its annual stop at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday night is considered Double A in scope, style and substance. It’s sort of like the Texas League in baseball.

The Sprint Cup Series is the major leagues of stock car racing; they’ve even got playoffs now, and they keep messing with the format, just like in baseball. The Nationwide Series is considered Triple A. You can smell the exhaust of the big time from the Nationwide Series.

Then come the trucks, on the third rung of the ladder. Class AA, like the Texas League. Instead of Ford, Chevy and Toyota, they could call the teams Midland, Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

The interest level in the truck series, like that in the Double-A baseball leagues, is somewhat muted. Sometimes it’s difficult to find the races on TV, and nobody starts his engine until the college football game ends on Fox Sports 1.

Who won the 2014 Texas League title? Why it was Midland — the Midland RockHounds, who beat Tulsa in five games.

Who’s leading the 2014 Camping World Truck Series in points? Why it’s Matt Crafton, in the No. 88.

Not long ago, the truck series was made up mostly of old shortstops and utility infielders — guys who no longer could hit the curveball on the Sprint and Nationwide circuits. In 2007, every driver in the Top 10 was 30 or older.

The truck series, constantly evolving, had by then been transformed into something of an old folks home for guys in fireproof overalls, though it should be said that most of these old folks still got around pretty darn well for their age. Like Derek Jeter.

Some of the old-timers still are getting around. But the truck series is evolving again, and now it has a lot more peach fuzz on its rear spoiler.

Sixteen of the 30 starters Saturday night were under 30. It would have been 19, if NASCAR would allow some of the usual neophytes to run the intermediate 1.5-mile tracks. One must have a certain amount of experience before one drives on the high banks.

Cody Custer, the kid with rosy cheeks who won last week on the flat-mile track at New Hampshire, is only 16.

Some of the Cup veterans made fun on Twitter of the cap Custer wore in Victory Lane and how his ears were having trouble holding it in place. Then they said some nice things about him, too, that maybe he could become their sport’s Bryce Harper or even its Mike Trout with a little more seasoning.

Just as prospects in the Texas League sometimes boot double-play ground balls and pop up with the bases loaded, a lot of the youngsters make mistakes in these speedy pickup trucks.

They’ll try to pass on the low side when they should have gone high. Or vice versa. And then one of the veteran drivers will wag a finger, or he’ll take the whippersnapper aside back by the haulers afterward.

It’s not unlike when an old catcher who has become a Double-A manager takes aside his young shortstop after the kid forgets how many outs there are. There are competition yellows in baseball, too, only most take place in a darkened corner of the dugout.

But here’s the thing: If you are sitting in the stands at a Texas League game, or at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on a comfortable night for revving 358-cubic-inch pushrod V8 engines, it still looks like professional baseball, and it still looks like big-time motor racing, except the beers are cheaper in the Texas League, and you won’t find The Famous Chicken yukking it up on the truck circuit.

So round and round they went in those pickups Saturday, two-wide, three-wide, four-wide, at least on one of the restarts. The racing was good, perhaps better than that. Hardly anybody missed the cutoff man or got caught speeding on pit lane.

With 20 laps to go, the No. 54 and No. 51 trucks were running tail to nose. Those are Toyota trucks owned by Las Vegan Kyle Busch, who also started out in the truck series. Then with 13 laps to go, Busch’s trucks were nose to tail.

Erik Jones in the No. 51 dived low into the corner to take the lead from teammate Darrell Wallace Jr. in the No. 54.

Jones is 18 years old; Wallace, whose nickname is “Bubba” and who led a race-high 84 laps, is 20. Wallace is also African-American, which you don’t see every day in NASCAR.

Jones won. His margin of victory over Wallace was 1.329 seconds. It was Jones’ second win this season, only the second time he had raced on high banks. Busch usually drives the 51 when the truck races don’t conflict with his Cup schedule; Busch has won six times in the 51 this year.

After doing the celebratory burnout at the start-finish line, Jones, who also has rosy cheeks, said, “I had a blast. I learned a ton. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Check, check and check, and bring on the Midland RockHounds.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.