TOYOTA NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) Post-Race Notes & Quotes Daytona International Speedway – February 24, 2012
Tundra driver John King earned his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) victory in Friday night’s 250-mile race at Daytona International Speedway. King’s win marks the sixth consecutive victory for a Tundra at Daytona International Speedway. Friday night’s NCWTS race marked King’s eighth career start in the series and first of his career at Daytona. Timothy Peters (second), Travis Kvapil (fourth), Todd Bodine (sixth) and Chris Fontaine (seventh) also finished in the top-10 driving Tundras at the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Toyota drivers David Starr (21st), Matt Crafton (23rd), Johnny Sauter (24th), Ross Chastain (28th), Dakoda Armstrong (35th) and Jason Leffler (36th) were also in the field.
JOHN KING, No. 7 Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position: 1st What can you say about winning this race? “I’m a rookie — I’m not supposed to be here. This is unreal. This Red Horse Racing team is unbelievable. From the owner to the tire guy — everybody does their job. I don’t know what to say. This is a dream come true.”
How did the race progress? “We got out of the draft early. Just stayed with it — got lucky, got a caution and got back up. Stayed right on my yellow brick road and just made it up towards the front. I apologize to Johnny Sauter — I shouldn’t have been there because I am so inexperienced. Here we are.”
What happened between you and Johnny Sauter? “I closed up on him real fast — I was in the tri-oval and I couldn’t get off of him. I closed up on him too fast and just wrecked him. Just inexperience — rookie mistake.”
What were you thinking in the closing laps? “I was ready for them to be over real quick. Timothy (Peters) stuck with me and pushed me right to the end. I’ve got great teammates.”
CHAD KENDRICK, crew chief, No. 7 Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing How was your team able to win the race? “We had a game plan. First of all, I got to say this was a truly, truly team effort from the whole organization — from the shop, to the track, all three teams worked together. We talked in practice. Formulated plans what we were going to do in the race. We did the race the way we planned it from the start, from taking the tires the first stop, to not taking tires the rest of the race. Taking the fuel. John (King) did an awesome job coming onto pit road and coming around. He had to come around the 19 (Brad Keselowski) twice to take fuel. One time we got blocked in by the truck in front of us. But we stuck to our plan. This truck has won this race — this is the second time. It won in 2010 with Timothy Peters. I guess it’s ironic Timothy helped push us to this win with John in it. John’s a great, great kid — awesome to work with. I mean, you put somebody in good equipment, they have a good head on them — I guess you always have a shot.”
TIMOTHY PETERS, No. 17 Tire Kingdom/Service Central Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position: 2nd What did you think of the finish? “How about John King? Go back to Top Gun — you never, ever leave your wing man, right? I will tell you — awesome finish to Daytona. How about our Tire Kingdom Toyota Tundra. Toyota one-two — Tom DeLoach (team owner), thank you for the opportunity. Joe Gibbs Racing engines — thank you Mark Cronquist and everybody back there. Butch Hylton (crew chief) and all these crew guys. I’m so happy for John and Todd (Bodine) — great night for the organization.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL, No. 09 Toyota Tundra, RAB Racing Finishing Position: 4th How was your race tonight? “All the credit goes to Robby Benton (team owner) and everybody at the RAB Racing team with Brack Maggard. They brought me a really solid Toyota Tundra tonight and we were happy to have Toyota Parts and Service on the side of it. We just kept it out of trouble and that was kind of our strategy. We knew we had a strong truck. Just make the right moves at the right time, stay out of trouble, stay in line when we needed to stay in line — the guys on pit road did a great job. Just really proud of everybody on this team. A week ago is when I got the call, so to come out of h ere with a good top-five finish we’re really happy.” TODD BODINE, No. 11, Good Sam Roadside Assistance Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position: 6th What did you tell John King after the win? “I told him to savor every minute of this — he’s going to victory lane at Daytona. He’s such a good kid. He’s so polite and nice and he’s a heck of a race car driver. I talked to him before the race and I told him, ‘John, just don’t do anything and you’re going to be there at the end.’ Sure enough, that’s what happened. I am so happy for him and everybody at Red Horse Racing has worked their guts out for the last two months on all three of these speedway trucks. We should have got all three in the top-three there, but I just couldn’t get going on the restart. I tried to side draft him and it didn’t work. I am so happy for this team. Everybody at Good Sam Roadside Assistance — I really appreciate that they have come on board. I hope they had fun, got some coverage out of it. Red Horse Racing is a great race team — Tom DeLoach (team owner) deserves to be in victory lane. I hope that every member of all three of these teams goes over there.”
CHRIS FONTAINE, No. 84 Glenden Enterprises Toyota Tundra, Glenden Enterprises Finishing Position: 7th
DAVID STARR, No. 81 Zachry Tundra, Arrington Racing Finishing Position: 21st
MATT CRAFTON, No. 88 Menards Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing Finishing Position: 23rd
JOHNNY SAUTER, No. 13 Hot Honeys Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing Finishing Position: 24th What happened that took you out of the race? “Thought I was in pretty good position there, but it’s just a product of superspeedway racing. I was trying to get into the tri- oval and I think it’s just a racing deal. I wish it would have worked a little better with (Ron) Hornaday. I apologize for that, but we couldn’t really hook up. Daytona in the Truck Series has a lot of incidents — always has — always will. I’m glad to see a Toyota in victory lane, but we wanted it to be the 13.”
Did you get hit from behind? “Yeah, for sure. It was pretty substantial help too. It just looks like he’s (John King) crossing over here and he’s obviously getting help from the guy behind him — it’s probably (Todd) Bodine. He’s known for driving a little bit over his head at places like this. Nonetheless, super proud of everybody on this Hot Honey’s/Curb Records Toyota. We were in position and I felt like we were in the cat bird seat there. You could see that I tried to do everything right and I was getting pushed the opposite way. Daytona’s been an Achilles heel for me — for whatever reason it’s impossible for me to get to a finish so I had no expectations going into the race today. Am I surprised that I’m standing here with a 24th place finish? No.”
ROSS CHASTAIN, No. 08 National Watermelon Association & Promotion Board Toyota Tundra, Finishing Position: 28th
DAKODA ARMSTRONG, No. 98 EverFi.com Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing Finishing Position: 35th
JASON LEFFLER, No. 18 Dollar General Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports Finishing Position: 36th What happened that took you out of the race? “I have no idea. All I can tell you is the Dollar General Toyota was really fast. Just got shuffled back there early in the race and was kind of riding and just got wiped out. I knew it was too good to be true to have a truck that fast and make it to the end without any problems. I’ve got to thank everybody — Dollar General, Toyota, M&M’s and Flexco and everybody at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) for this opportunity. Just ready to go at Rockingham again.”
