Regan Smith has a part-time ride for the 2017 racing season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
“We are looking at running 10-12 races this year with Regan,” Ricky Benton Racing team owner Rick Benton told NBC Sports in an email Wednesday.
The story was first reported by JeffGluck.com.
“I wasn’t done racing — don’t count me out yet,” Smith told Gluck. “It’s just nothing was playing out to be in a good situation in Cup this year.”
Friends for nearly 20 years, Smith and Benton had previously talked about racing together, but as Gluck noted, the timing had never worked out.
Smith’s first run in the No. 92 Ford will be the season-opening race at Daytona. He’ll remain in the truck for the following five races, through Dover on June 2. The rest of the races Smith will drive are undecided.
Smith told Gluck he’d like replicate the start NASCAR On NBC analyst Parker Kligerman had in the No. 92 last season with three straight top-10 finishes: third at Daytona and eighth at both Atlanta and Martinsville.
“If we could duplicate the start we had last year, that would be an ideal situation,” Smith told Gluck. “Then we could aim for top 10s and try to stay up there.
“We have to work to get consistency a little bit, but I think the sky’s the limit. There’s some really good people down there.”
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