Why Brendan Queen is not going to be nice in his first Truck Series season

Brendan Queen doesn’t want to be the nice guy in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series this season.

Queen is less than a month away from beginning his rookie campaign in the series with Kaulig Racing, driving one of the five Ram entries the organization will field. But it was Queen, the 28-year-old from Virginia, who had the honor of being announced as the team’s first driver. It came on the heels of winning the ARCA Menards Series championship.

And as the man who is affectionately called “Butterbean” looks forward to what’s ahead, that is where Queen says he needs a personality adjustment. It all stems from the fact that the characteristics of Truck Series racing require an elbows-out mentality, with drivers needing to keep up momentum rather than throttle management.

“The trucks are really aggressive because people are not going to lift for you, because they’ll get ran over,” Queen said. “So that’s something I’ve got to work on, just knowing to make every run count, don’t lift for someone but also don’t wreck them, and don’t put myself in a bad spot.

“Because I’m too nice. I was really too nice in a truck race at Martinsville and I lifted for people, and the guy behind me just drove through me. So, I’ve told myself, I’m not being nice.”

It’s not too hard for Queen to come to terms with. He takes the approach of not having friends at the racetrack other than those who are on his race team, which is how it should be.

“It’s cutthroat, and that’s what won me a lot of races along the way, too, was that mentality,” Queen said. “But I do like to take care of people who race you clean. It’s just tough in that series because somebody is going to take it if you don’t, so you have to be really smart about that. Hopefully we’re out front and don’t really have to worry about it, but I think that’s the tough I have to work on.”

Queen has made five previous starts in the series over the last two years, which gives him a sense of what to expect. Plus, having the year of ARCA Menards Series racing under his belt has gone a long way toward giving him confidence in certain tracks and how to approach them.

There will be plenty to learn, however.

“I feel like those Truck starts definitely helped,” Queen said. “Obviously, they weren’t the best starts. (North) Wilkesboro was good, and then really the rest have been kind of frustrating, not really where I want to run because I hold myself to a high standard. But the good news is being in there every week (this) year, you’re going to get in that routine. I think for me, pit road is tough. I got to work on that.

“We don’t do it every week (because) in ARCA, you don’t have to. So, those are going to be the little things that I’ve got to figure out, which I will. When you do it every week, it becomes like riding a bike.”

Queen became one of the sport’s hottest prospects with a quick rise through the ranks, success in grassroots racing like late models and the CARS Tour, and then a tear through the ARCA Menards Series in 2025. It led to him making a pair of Truck Series starts and then getting a handful of O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts with Kaulig Racing late in the year.

The journey has felt both quick and long. Queen described it as starting with a grind, hoping and praying, and then getting one leg over the fence. By then, it starts to feel close. But it’s not until the other leg gets over that things begin to happen in quick succession.

“I never thought that I would have fans,” Queen said. “That was a dream of mine and now we have a whole name for the fan base, Bean Nation. It is crazy. I love my fans. They are me. Like, if I’m on the other side of the fence, and I’m just one of them, I just got this opportunity to drive a race car, but if I wasn’t, I’m right on the other side of the fence hanging out. It’s awesome.”

CLICK HERE to listen to the full conversation with Queen, or look for it on any major podcast platform.