*In a Nutshell:* Johnny Sauter took the checkered flag 2.199 seconds ahead of Parker Kligerman to win the WinStar World Casino 350 at Texas Motor Speedway Friday night. The driver of the No 13 SealMaster / Curb Records Toyota led 28 of 147 laps en route to a sweep at the 1.5-mile oval this season. Polesitter Nelson Piquet, Jr., Kyle Busch, and rookie Ty Dillon rounded out the top 5.
*Championship Update*
Having gone into Martinsville Speedway as the points leader, Ty Dillon suffered his worst career finish of 28th after a blown right front tire caused significant damage to his No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet. As a result, James Buescher has taken a pretty substantial 21 marker advantage heading into the type of track Turner Motorsports has accelerated at for much of the year–intermediate. Early season leader Timothy Peters find himself just 25 points behind in what is likely now just a three horse race.
*Truex, Merrell Set to Debut*
If all goes well in qualifying on Saturday morning, the Kroger 200 will feature two drivers making their Truck Series debuts. Ryan Truex has partnered with Hillman Racing, who fielded the No. 27 for a Jeb Burton 13th-place result at the paperclip in the spring event earlier this year. Though it’ll be his first Truck Series start at the 0.533-mile oval, Truex does have a 2010 K&N East Series start where he brought home a runner-up finish for Michael Waltrip Racing.
With just four races remaining in the 2012 Chase for the Sprint Cup, signs are starting to point to the No. 48 team resurrecting their horseshoe-up-their-backside luck that manifested itself during five-consecutive tiles earned from 2006-2010. After shortening the Lowe’s Impala by about a foot at Kansas, Johnson and company rebounded to a ninth place finish. While the No. 48 kept pace with the Blue Deuce of Brad Keselowski at seven points, there is one glaring omission that many have seemed to overlook: Chevrolet hasn’t won a race in almost three months.
The Camping World Truck Series takes another week off in its final extended break before the end of the year. While most of the drivers are taking their time to relax and refresh, I’ve got a few more odds and ends to take a closer look at before everyone heads back to the track next weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
*Truck Series on Dirt in 2013?*
Earlier this week, “ESPN.com’s David Newton reported”:http://espn.go.com/racing/nascar/truck/story/_/id/8513382/truck-race-possible-eldora-speedway-dirt-sources-say that NASCAR may be looking at the possibility of hosting a Truck Series event on the dirt at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. According to Newton, “multiple sources with the series said they’ve been told a dirt track could be added to the 2013 schedule.”
With the Camping World Truck Series off for the next couple weeks, it’s time for teams and drivers alike to take a step back and regroup in preparation for the final four races of the season. Of course, along with off weeks comes a lack of news coming out of the series. In fact, it’s almost as if the series doesn’t exist during their breaks, so this week, I bring you a few random thoughts and observations.
*Record Breaking Year*
Parker Kligerman’s victory last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway marked the eighth different first-time winner (John King – Daytona, James Buescher – Kansas, Justin Lofton – Charlotte, Joey Coulter – Pocono, Nelson Piquet Jr. – Michigan, Ty Dillon – Atlanta, Ryan Blaney – Iowa) the series has seen this season. It breaks the previous record of seven set in 1997 and matched in 1998.
I had a stomach sickness two or three days prior to the race at Las Vegas, and I thought I’d get better but I didn’t. Before the race I went to the infield care center and had an IV. That made me feel a little better. As far as the race itself, I was glad it was at night–it wasn’t as hot as last year. We had a good truck. During the only practice, we made a mistake so we ended up putting it back to the exact same setup that we had when we unloaded. When we went to qualify, I qualified seventh and I was really happy with the qualifying effort. Once the race started, I was average to snug, but on the long runs I was getting better. Then I was a little free because the track was changing and the temperature was changing. At the end, the guys did awesome on pit stops–I think the best pit stops we’ve had all year long. We gained spots every time, and on the last pit stop, we came in tenth and went out fifth.
DEARBORN, Mich., October 1, 2012 – While advances in computer simulation models and wind tunnel technology have given race teams the ability to predict what conditions they …
With just six races remaining in the 2012 season, James Buescher finds himself in a familiar place. Going into Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year, the driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet sat just three points behind eventual champion Austin Dillon. This season he’s just four markers behind Dillon’s younger brother Ty, but in 2011, Buescher moved away from the championship lead as the races wore down, finishing third in the standings. In those final five events, the driver of the No. 31 posted an average finish of 13th, and a third-place spot in the standings was pretty impressive given he had one less start than the rest of the leaders.
With just seven races remaining to determine the 2012 Camping World Truck Series champion, the series heads off to Kentucky Speedway for a Nationwide Series companion race this weekend. While a visit to Kentucky may not be all that spectacular on its own, six champions have also won in the Bluegrass state during their respective championship seasons.
It all began back in 2000, the inaugural season for the Truck Series at Kentucky when Greg Biffle snagged his third of five wins that year, in a season where he finished outside the top 14 just once; a 25th-place result at Texas in November. Just two years later, it was Mike Bliss who scored his third of five victories in 2002, winning the championship after leading the standings for the final ten races of the year.
