This is it. After Friday night, we will crown the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion. Who will it be? The final 4 have put in an entire seasons worth of work to touch a dream; now is their chance to make it a reality.

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Ty Majeski

Ty Majeski may be that driver that a lot of people can support. Majeski has dreamed of having this kind of opportunity his whole life. From working as an engineer for Roush Fenway Racing in 2017 until he got his chance to make his NASCAR national touring debut in the Xfinity series. In a part-time role before the Roush decided to solely focus on the NASCAR Cup Series leaving Majeski needing to search elsewhere. At the end of 2019, he was able to get a drive for Niece Motorsports at Phoenix. This allowed Ty to get a full-time ride for the team in 2020. At least until he got let go before that years playoffs with little to no reason. Majeski may know more about what happened, but from the outside looking in, it's hard to tell. Then finally in 2021 he works as a mechanic in the ThorSport Racing shop and was given an opportunity to run 4 races, that was all it took for him to get a full-time ride in the 66 ThorSport Racing Tundra for 2022. He was solid all season, pointing his way into the playoffs for the first time ever. The 66 team has gotten better and better as the season went on; soon, he was not only showing top 5 speed but dominant speed. In the first 2 races of the playoffs, he led over 70 laps but did not win them. But, after pointing his way to the round of 8, Majeski punched his ticket to Phoenix first by winning in Bristol. The 1st win of his career couldn't have come at a better time. Is he peaking at the right time? Maybe as he went on to win Homestead just to put an exclamation point on how far he's come. With the help of a championship winning crew chief, Joe Shear Jr, they have been the best ThorSport Truck all season. Can it win Majeski his 1st Truck championship?

Chandler Smith

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Very few, including me, had Chandler Smith making it to the final 4 at the start of the year, but the 18 team have shown up being championship threats all season long. Looking at the stats, you could say he's outperformed his more experienced teammate, John Hunter Nemecheck. Chandler has more wins (3-2), top 10s (15-14), laps completed (3032-2905), laps led (440-372), and a stronger average finish ( 9th-12th). Yep, the only stats he has fewer than Nemecheck are top 5s (8-9) and poles (0-7). Plus, Chandler has completed and led more laps than anybody as a bonus fact. His talent and improvements have been rewarded with an Xfinity series ride full time with Kaulig Racing. The team president of Kaulig Chris Rice believes that Chandler is going to win the championship; he did win the Truck race last year. It would be a proper send-off for Kyle Busch Motorsports, who gave him his big chance and will mark the organization's last race as a Toyota branded team before switching to Chevrolet in 2023. The last KBM Truck champion was Christopher Bell in 2017. Can Chandler end that 5 year dry spell?

Zane Smith

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For the 3rd season in a row, Zane Smith is going to Phoenix with a shot at the title. Only this time is with Front Row Motorsports. The organization has been on the rise not only in Cup but in the Truck Series as well. Todd Gilliland from 2020-2021 helped unleash the potential that the 38 truck had with 2 playoff appearances finishing 10th and 7th respectively in 2020 and 2021. Zane, before this season, was with GMS and has come excruciatingly close to winning the championship. In his rookie season, during 2020, he barely lost out to Creed on pit road in the final pitstops and couldn't keep up during the final restart. In 2021, after winning his way into Phoenix with his career on the line passed Ben Rhodes on the final restart with 41 laps to go just to get ran down and passed with 9 laps to go to another heartbreaking 2nd place. This has been his career year in every way imaginable; he even got called to the Cup Series in a substitute role for Chris Buescher and beat the owner 2012 Cup champion Brad Keselowski. There is more to come from that group as they will continue working together in 2023. Will they enter that season as the reigning champions or still seeking that 1st championship?

Ben Rhodes

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The reigning champion has made it to Phoenix. At 25 years old, he has been in the Truck Series for 7 years. Through that time, he has had some shinning moments. Like in the 2017 Toyota Tundra 250, people nowadays don't like Kyle Busch for what they call "leaching" in the Xfinity and Truck Series. I can understand where they come from since he is a 2 time Cup champion. But from time to time, you'll see a series regular stand up and put the fight to him. In that race Ben Rhodes was the guy, he was showing he could be just as fast or faster even than Kyle Busch in the middle part of the race. Shortly after the final restart Ben Rhodes would make the pass on Busch and look like he was going to claim his 1st career win. But this happened....

https://youtu.be/Nf4UJvdNuvk

You could hear it in the team's voices that it was one that got away, something they have worked so hard for and just not catching a break. After taking some time to collect himself Ben Rhodes had this to say

https://youtu.be/up9xZJ-nLBI

It wasn't until looking at this video again to remember that in 2016 that ThorSport had a fire destroy about 1/3-1/2 of the shop in 2016. Thankfully nobody got hurt but they have been through so much to get to that point again. But the happy ending would come for this team

https://youtu.be/csiJU9izqfY

If the name "Christopher Bell" sounds familiar, he is the driver of the #20 Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Cup Series. So, Rhodes beat a future Cup driver and possibly a future Cup champion. From 2018 to now there have been several changes for Rhodes. From number changes from 27,41 to 99, to different manufactures being a Ford guy to returning to Toyota in 2021 and now just having a champion's mentality. Crazy to think that in 2020 arguably the most controversial thing Ben has done was purposely wreck what would be his future teammate Christian Eckes after feeling like he was done wrong and even questioned Eckes's talent. Since being teammates, they have buried the hatchet and it is water under the bridge. In 2021 you could tell that there is a maturity growing in Rhodes. All drivers go through that at some phase, it just clicks that they know when to push and when to back off. Last year Rhodes called the season finale last year the hardest 40 laps he has ever driven in his life. He had to drive like that and even give a little bump in short track racing style to become the 2021 Truck champion. Can he match his teammate Matt Crafton and become the 2nd driver in series history to win back-to-back titles?

With all of that being said, who will be champ? I believe that it will be Chandler Smith. The 20-year-old has shown throughout the year that he can race with the best of them. Chandler this week on NASCAR race hub explained how he had to go through a learning curb in 2021 especially on the 1.5-mile racetracks. He also detailed how he had to push himself to be more aggressive, he has shown that on track and the passion to be the best is there. Early in the season in interviews he sometimes expressed frustrations with his teammates. But as the season went on Smith seemed to be enjoying it more, maybe it's getting married and becoming a dad. Nonetheless he is just going to go out and do the best he can on the track and let the cards fall where they may. That's my championship pick. Who do you guys think will be the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion?