NASCAR Daytona Truck race spotlights Tony Stewart, and one sleeveless absentee
If you were tasked with encapsulating the anticipation of the NASCAR Truck Series race on Friday night, where would you start?
You’d probably start with the big star in the race, right? Tony Stewart. The NASCAR Hall of Famer, the inevitable champion in anything in which he sits, the 54-year-old dynamo whose humor is still intact. (When a reporter alluded to the idea that Stewart never won a Daytona 500, Stewart deadpanned: “Thanks for reminding me. I was never going to remember that I hadn’t.”) He’s here running for Ram, a new manufacturer in the Truck Series this year, on a one-race deal.
Next, you’d probably mention the rest of the star-studded entry list. X Games and Rally car legend Travis Pastrana. Cup star Ricky Stenhouse. Motorsports YouTube sensation Cleetus McFarland — real name Garrett Mitchell — whose brand is so strong that NASCAR used him in a recent TV commercial … one that that featured at least one “Hell yeah, brother!”
But maybe you’d start somewhere else. Maybe you’d start in the Daytona International Speedway media center, on Thursday afternoon, during a news conference with McFarland and Pastrana. Maybe you’d start here: McFarland — with permission — got his friend’s pocket knife, sliced Pastrana’s sleeves and then ripped Pastrana’s shirt to make it a tank top. (McFarland hates sleeves; don’t try to understand why; it’s just one of his things.) It was an initially funny moment — but then it quickly turned sweet, and was punctuated by McFarland telling a short story of the late Greg Biffle, who will be at the racetrack in spirit.
“Actually one year ago today was actually the first time I ripped Biff’s sleeves off,” McFarland said, referring to Biffle, a NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee and McFarland’s best friend, who died in a plane crash in December. “So this was kind of a special moment. We gotta all have our sleeves off this weekend.”
Any of these places is a good place to start.
Dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find there’s even more reason to tune into the Truck race at 7:30 p.m. Friday on FS1, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.
Wait ... Tony Stewart is going to race in NASCAR again?
Let’s start with the Tony Stewart of it all.
Smoke, with his 49 Cup race wins and three Cup championships, announced in January that he’d make his return to NASCAR with this Truck race. He’s running for Kaulig Racing as part of Ram’s debut into the sport of NASCAR. It’s a one-and-done deal, he clarified several times Thursday. He has no plans of mounting a NASCAR comeback.
“We could lead every lap tomorrow night, and I will not be back here for the Daytona 500,” Stewart said. “I’m pretty good after all these years of saying ‘never.’ Yeah, you will not see me here for the Daytona 500.”
By the same token, Stewart, when he retired from NASCAR racing in 2016, said he’d “never” be back in a sanctioning body event. He acknowledged that Thursday with a smile.
He added: “Everybody I knew, when I quit driving here in NASCAR, we thought we’d never see this moment again. And trust me, I’m just as surprised as all of you are. … I need to stop listening to myself sometimes. I’m learning not to trust me, too.”
Stewart has never run a restrictor-plate Truck race before. And he’s been reminded of that a bunch of times since arriving in Daytona this week. Drivers in the press have reminded him, too. On Wednesday, Joey Logano, who will be in the booth Friday, said that Stewart is “going to realize how much the world has changed since he was here last.” Stewart’s protege, Chase Briscoe, laughed when asked if he’s corresponded with Stewart — his “hero” — at all since the announcement that he was running in the Truck Series.
“He’s hardly run any truck races as it is,” Briscoe said. “He’s asking me all these questions, and I think he’s more nervous than he’s letting off. Just because he’s like, ‘Man, I’m not going to get a practice in the draft. I’m doing single car runs all the time. I have to qualify in.’ It’ll be interesting to see what he thinks.
“And that field is like, stacked. It’s probably the toughest Truck Series field we’ve had in Daytona in a long time.”
And to all those points — particularly Logano’s?
Said Stewart: “They’re probably right.”
“There’s a lot of technology that’s changed in 10 years,” Stewart said. “And that’s where you got to rely on your buddies. I’ve already made some phone calls in the Cup garage to guys who have run Trucks, and you know, they’re absolutely right. … But there’s one thing when you come to Daytona and Talladega that hasn’t changed. And that’s the air. The air is the same no matter how much technology’s changed.”
Stewart, at least off the track, hasn’t changed much, either.
Why Travis Pastrana and Cleetus McFarland are racing in Truck Series
Stewart, of course, isn’t the only one making his return. Pastrana is. He ran in the O’Reilly Series in 2012 and 2013. In fact, the motorsports icon ran in the 2023 Daytona 500 for 23XI Racing — and ended with a Top 11.
Pastrana kept it simple: “Getting down here to Daytona, it’s so much fun.”
“Honestly, when I stopped racing NASCAR for a few years, my friends were almost depressed,” Pastrana said with a laugh. “Like, ‘I just love going around the tracks, and I love everything about it.’ It’s an amazing sport. And it’s way more challenging and way more stressful than you can ever imagine by watching on TV. “
McFarland’s entree into the season-opening NASCAR Truck Series race is purely because it’s fun, too. He’s running a part-time schedule in the ARCA Menards Series and loves it, he said.
“I’ve been really enjoying ARCA; that level of competition has been good for me, and I’ve learned a lot,” McFarland said. “This Truck thing happened purely because Travis Pastrana is an amazing human being and pretty much handed me the opportunity to do it by putting me in touch with Niece Motorsports. … It all came together because of Travis, 100%.”
Pastrana interrupted: “But don’t let him fool you. He’s a hell of a wheelman. Everyone’s like, ‘Ah, YouTubers are this and that.’ … At the end of the day, one of the best drivers I’ve ever met driving anything is this guy.”
Greg Biffle will be honored in McFarland’s own way in Daytona
When McFarland first started toward his stock car racing dream, he told Biffle of his aspirations.
“When I got into this with Biff, I called him and said, ‘I want to run the Daytona 500.’ And he was like, ‘I mean, you just can’t,’” McFarland said. “I was so excited that I was like, ‘I want to run the 500’ — that was my only goal. And now that I realize how good the other drivers are, and how fast the cars are, I realized, ‘Wow, I definitely cannot race the Daytona 500.’ Biff was right.”
McFarland didn’t speak long in between referencing Biffle. The two were great friends. McFarland gave a teary, stirring eulogy in Charlotte last month — recalling stories of The Biff and his family.
And on Friday night, Biffle will be with him — and thus all of NASCAR. McFarland’s paint scheme in his truck bed includes the No. 16 with a halo laid over it.
“What you see is just a tribute,” McFarland said. It’s a reminder, he said, “to be like Biff.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NASCAR Daytona Truck race spotlights Tony Stewart, and one sleeveless absentee."
