Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Fr8 208 at Atlanta Motor Speedway served as a bit of sweet redemption for Bayley Currey, who had a really good Niece Motorsports truck in this event a season ago before the roof on his truck became detached, which forced him to the garage, and ended his day early of the finish.
Fast forward to Sunday’s race, and Currey did a masterful job of clawing his way through the field from the 31st starting spot at the drop of the green flag, and in the closing laps, Currey found himself in position to be in the mix for the race win. Ultimately, race-winner Kyle Busch had the best truck in the closing laps, but Currey was able to match his career-best finish of fourth, which he also achieved at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2023.
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While Currey was glad to redeem himself from last year’s disappointing finish, the selfish racer in him wanted a win, or the very least one additional spot on Saturday at Atlanta.
“Somewhat, man, I wanted third though. We finished fourth here two years ago, I wanted to win more than anything, but I at least wanted third,” Currey quipped. “I was side-drafting for all I was worth. But, yeah, it definitely feels good. I know we had a good truck here last year. It kind of feels good to know we can go to a race track and just be good like this. I mean, what do we have? There are two Niece trucks in the top 10, and there were three of them running there for most of the race. It’s a testament to the guys at the Niece Motorsports shop, and everything they do to bring fast trucks to the race track.”
In the closing laps of Saturday’s race, Currey was trying to find a way to the lead, but Kyle Busch’s No. 7 Spire Motorsports truck was simply too good to get around.
“Just trying to push our lane forward and trying to make that progress there. You just do what you can when you’re second or third there. You can’t do much but push the heck out of the guy in front of you,” Currey said. “The Niece Motorsports team brought an awesome Masked Owl Chevrolet [Silverado] RST. You know what, I’m not running full-time this year, and I just want to make the most of my opportunities here. To lead laps at Daytona last week, and come away with a top-five today, it’s huge for us and I can’t thank these guys enough.”
While Currey saw his schedule pared down to part-time for the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, the driver has had near-misses for the race win two weeks in a row to start the season. He said knowing Kyle Busch was in front of him didn’t make him drive the finish of the race any different than he would have otherwise.
“I mean, it’s just another truck with a number on it to me,” Currey said. “At that point, I was trying to get my line to go forward, but I knew he had a really good truck. He was up in control of the race pretty much the whole time. I knew if I could stick with him, we’d have a decent shot at maybe trying to go for the win. It didn’t play out that way, it wasn’t in the cards, but we’ll take the top five.”
With Christian Rose seeing his full-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series campaign with Niece Motorsports come to an end due to sponsorship trouble, is there room for Currey to add additional events to his schedule down the stretch?
“I mean, I’d love to, but that’s up to the folks at Niece Motorsports, and everybody that is on this truck, man,” Currey explained. “Precision, Masked Owl Technologies, Autoventive, everybody at Chevrolet, and everybody that has faith in us and helps us go and run this 44 truck. We’ll see, I guess that’s the best answer I have for you.”
Perhaps the top-five finish Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway will be the thing Currey needs to tip the sponsorship scales in his favor to obtain more races in 2025.
