The truck series was created after a group of SCORE off-road racers approached NASCAR with the concept of a pavement truck racing competition in 1991. After several years of development, four demonstration races were held in 1994, and NASCAR sanctioned the series for its inaugural 1995 season under the name NASCAR SuperTruck Series. Sears, Roebuck and Co. provided title sponsorship through its Craftsman tool brand under a three-year deal that began with the series's formation.
In 1996, the series was formally renamed the Craftsman Truck Series, and the Craftsman brand became the defining commercial identity of the division. The inaugural race, the Skoal Bandit Copper World Classic at Phoenix International Raceway, drew an event-record crowd of 38,000 spectators, signaling immediate public interest in the new format.
The series distinguished itself by being the first major NASCAR division to feature pickup truck-based stock cars and, in 2004, the first to welcome Toyota as a manufacturer, with the Toyota Tundra making its debut that year. Toyota had previously competed only in NASCAR's mostly regional Goody's Dash Series, making the Craftsman Truck Series its gateway into NASCAR's national competition structure.
Sears held the Craftsman naming rights for the full duration of the series's first commercial identity, from 1995 through 2008 — a fourteen-year span that established the truck series as a permanent fixture in NASCAR's three-tier national structure.
When Craftsman's sponsorship concluded after 2008, Camping World assumed title sponsorship beginning in 2009. The series subsequently carried several names through the Camping World corporate family: Camping World Truck Series (2009–2018), Gander Outdoors Truck Series (2019), Gander RV and Outdoors Truck Series (2020), and again Camping World Truck Series (2021–2022).
Stanley Black and Decker acquired the Craftsman brand from Sears in 2017. On August 26, 2022, NASCAR announced a multi-year sponsorship deal with Stanley Black and Decker under which the series would return to the Craftsman name beginning with the 2023 season. As part of the arrangement, Stanley Black and Decker also became the official tool brand of NASCAR across all series.
The revival of the Craftsman branding was notable for restoring the series to its original commercial identity while under entirely different corporate ownership. Where the first Craftsman era had been tied to Sears, a traditional department store retailer in decline, the second Craftsman era was backed by a major industrial tool conglomerate that had purchased the brand specifically to expand its presence in tool and hardware markets.
The Craftsman brand's two sponsorship periods bookend the truck series's identity and represent one of the more unusual commercial histories in NASCAR, where a brand name outlasted its original corporate home and returned under a new owner. The Craftsman Truck Series remains the only NASCAR national division devoted exclusively to pickup truck racing, and the Craftsman name has been associated with it for more of its existence than any other sponsor.