Day Set to Close His NCTS Stint with Martinsville Debut

Venue: Martinsville Speedway

Event: Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200

Date: Friday, November 1st

Location: Ridgeway, VA

Track Description: 0.526-mile oval

Distance: 200 laps, 105.2 miles (6:00 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, Motor Racing Network)

Closing it Down … Corey Day will close out his four-race stint in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS) on Friday night with his first start at Martinsville Speedway. The driver of the No. 81 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Silverado RST posted his career-best finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway (HMS) last weekend and looks to finish his initiation in NASCAR competition on a high note at one of NASCAR’s original venues. In his previous short track start, Day recorded an 18th-place finish on the concrete high banks at Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS).

Getting Up to Speed … The California sprint car phenom has gotten up to speed at an exceptional pace in his first three NCTS races on top of his “day job” of finishing fifth in the High Limit Racing sprint car series. Day was battling for a top-10 spot at Kansas Speedway on September 27th before being collected in an incident and rebounded from a flat tire and wall contact to record a 16th-place finish a week ago at HMS. He is set for his eighth-career pavement start on Friday night across the NCTS, ARCA Menards Series, and late model competition.

Season to Date … Day’s final NCTS appearance of the season will be behind the wheel of the No. 81 entry, which he drove in his debut at BMS. His 2024 season was highlighted by eight feature wins in High Limit competition and recently captured the $30,000-to-win Trophy Cup at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. In his seven previous pavement starts, Day earned a late model stock win at Hickory Speedway and finished fourth in the ARCA Menards Series at Kansas.

Tune In … Action from Martinsville can be seen on FOX Sports 2 beginning Friday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. ET with practice and qualifying, followed by the green flag at 6:00 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Stay connected with the No. 81 HendrickCars.com team by following @BMR_NASCAR on Twitter, @bmrnascar on Instagram, and Bill McAnally Racing on Facebook. 

Corey Day Quote:

On his debut at Martinsville Speedway:

“I think Martinsville will be my biggest challenge so far. In dirt racing and in the pavement races I’ve done, it’s a lot of throttle time and working the brake with it. Where Martinsville is going to be a lot of heavy braking as well which is different for me. I’ve spent this week looking at data and prepping in the Chevy sim to hopefully get me up to speed faster Friday. I’m going to take it one lap at a time though and build up to it like we have the past three truck races and see how it goes.”