Timothy Peters has had a rough few weeks in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
His former team, Red Horse Racing, shut down abruptly a few weeks ago, leaving him and many others without a job. Unable to secure a ride for Dover, Peters sat on the sidelines but quickly announced a partnership with MDM Motorsports for Texas Motor Speedway Friday night.
Peters qualified 14th, just narrowly missing making the second round. He was then putting together a respectable run inside the top 10 for the team when things changed.
Following the ninth caution in the Winstaronlinegaming.com 400, the field restarted with two laps remaining. As the leaders came out of Turn 4, Austin Wayne Self lost control. Peters had nowhere to go, slamming Self. As he slid into the infield, the truck flipped, causing what was one of the worst wrecks in recent series history not on a plate track.
The damage to Peters’ truck, sitting upside down made it difficult for safety workers to remove him. But after what seemed like an eternity, Peters emerged from the infield care center, uninjured.
“Absolutely I’m fine,” he said with a small smile on his face. “It’s just a testament to NASCAR, to everyone at MDM for building me a safe race truck. I’m fine, my pride’s hurt more than anything.
“The safety crew did a great job getting the truck turned back over. They were there, Johnny on the Spot. Kudos to them; I just hate it for everybody.”
It was some terrifying wreckage that saw the No. 99 truck battered and broken apart. But despite being covered in mud, resting on its roof, Peters miraculously walked away.
Instead of the top-10 finish he had going for him, the Truck Series veteran settled for a 13th-place result. The two-race deal with MDM, despite a promising start will have to finish up with a different truck next week at Gateway Motorsports Park.
“It sucks really,” Peters said. “Shane Huffman and all the guys at MDM brought a good truck, and I’m just trying to help them with their program. Obviously, that’s not helping them with their program by bringing home a destroyed truck.
“It looked like when the No. 22 got loose, he came back to the middle of the racetrack, and I anticipated him going up the racetrack. I let off and went back to the throttle, and he came back in front of us. After that, it was just… hold on. But thanks to everybody here that gave me an opportunity. Metabo Power Tools coming on board, they’re such great people and I wanted to get them a little better finish than that ending.”
When the yellow flag flew for the incident, NASCAR determined the leaders had already taken the white flag. Christopher Bell was declared the Truck Series victor at Texas over Chase Briscoe after video review.
