Toyota NCWTS Dover Post-Race Notes & Quotes

[media-credit name=”doverspeedway.com” align=”alignright” width=”180″][/media-credit]TOYOTA NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) Post-Race Notes & Quotes Dover International Speedway – June 1, 2012

Tundra driver Todd Bodine won his first race of the season in Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) event at Dover International Speedway.

This marks the fifth consecutive victory by Toyota drivers at the one-mile concrete track.  Other winners include Scott Speed (2008), Brian Scott (2009), Aric Almirola (2010) and Kyle Busch (2011).

Matt Crafton (eighth) and Timothy Peters (ninth) also recorded top-10 results for Toyota at Dover.

Other Tundra drivers in the field included Brian Scott (13th), David Starr (14th), Ross Chastain (15th), John Wes

Townley (16th), Dakoda Armstrong (20th), Johnny Sauter (24th) and Chris Jones (31st).

Following Dover, seven Tundra drivers are in the top-20 in the unofficial NCWTS driver points standings — Peters (second), Bodine (sixth), Crafton (ninth), Starr (14th), Armstrong (15th), Sauter (17th) and Townley (19th).

TODD BODINE, No. 11 Red Horse Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position:  1st What were you thinking when you spun out? “I couldn’t believe it.  It gave me no hint — no sign — it was going to turn around.  Rick (Gay, crew chief) told me on that other red flag that it looked like maybe the right rear tire delaminated and that’s what made me spin getting in.  Fortunately, we didn’t get in the wall and here we are back to victory lane.”

How does it feel to get back to victory lane? “It’s been a while.  We didn’t get there last year with the Germain team.  It’s awesome.  This Red Horse race team is so good. I’m so happy to be a part of this team.  Tom DeLoach (owner) has put together a group of guys that are second to none.  Rick Gay (crew chief) and myself have been friends for so long – it’s great to be able to work together.  This win is because of Rick.  He made a gamble.  He took that shot that the rain was going to come.  We knew that if we could get out front we were going to be plenty fast enough to hold them off.  The truck wasn’t perfect.  Our Tundra wasn’t the perfect truck, but it was definitely good enough.”

Are you going to claim this win on a ‘rain out’? “Heck yeah, I’m going to claim it.  We got the check and the trophy. We want to take it back to Mooresville and celebrate. This isn’t Daytona — John King, I hate that he’s not here — but this is the second win for this team, Red Horse Racing.  I say team because it’s one team with multiple trucks.  This is the second win for this team this year.  We’ll take it and go to the house.”

What does it mean to get congratulations from so many other drivers? “That’s pretty special.  They know that I’ve been a long time without being to victory lane.  They know how much it means and how hard we’ve worked to come through what we came through with Germain Racing closing up — and coming to a new team.  It means a lot to have that kind of respect from your fellow competitors.”

What does it mean to get your first Dover Truck win? “It’s pretty special.  I’ve been fortunate enough to win three Nationwide races here and that was a long time ago.  Dover has always been very high on my list of one of my favorite tracks.  I ran my first speedway race here in the Nationwide car and started fourth and finished third and thought that was great.  To be able to come back and get a win in trucks, it kind of puts in perspective what I needed to do here and how hard it’s been to get here and to be able to do it with a brand new team and to be able to get Tom (DeLoach, owner) his monster trophy, that’s pretty special.  It means a lot.”

What does it mean to head to Texas now with a win under your belt this season? “I’m not going to guarantee a win, but we have a really good Tundra going there.  It’s been to the wind tunnel.  We know how good it is.  Great Gibbs (Joe Gibbs Racing) motors under the hood when you go there like that, when you’re loaded that strong, with a truck and a motor, you have to do well.  Rick (Gay, crew chief) really has some stuff figured out on the front end that is helping me drive it better.  I’m psyched, I can’t wait — especially going there after this.  We didn’t have the best truck.  Kevin (Harvick) had the best truck, but racing isn’t always about having the best truck, it’s about strategy and putting yourself in the right position and Rick Gay did that for this team.”

MATT CRAFTON, No. 88 Menards Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing Finishing Position:  8th How was your race and ending it with rain in Dover? “It sucks how it’s ending really because we needed to keep going.  We pitted and thought we were hopefully going to pit until the rest of the race right there.  (Todd) Bodine and them, that’s great to see a Toyota Tundra in victory lane, but I thought we had a decent truck and there was three or four guys for sure in front of us that still had to pit and weren’t going to make it on fuel.  We had a pretty good truck.  We needed track position, we got hung back on the second green flag run because we had a wheel loose and had to ride around and wait for that yellow.  Thankfully it came out because I don’t know how much longer the right front wheel was going to last.”

TIMOTHY PETERS, No. 17 Red Horse Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position:  9th How was your race? “It was good.  Obviously we didn’t end it the way we wanted to.  All in all, it was a top-10 finish, our teammate won and we’ll go to Texas with our Tundra.”

Did you pit after the first red flag for rain? “We pitted, were just a little too loose.  Doing the right thing. Everybody made the right calls.  We ran up front all day, so we didn’t come away from the race track disappointed finishing ninth when things are going your way.”

BRIAN SCOTT, No. 18 Shore Lodge Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports Finishing Position:  13th What was it like to be back in the Truck Series? “What a way to come back to the Truck Series with everything we had happen today.  We had a fast Shore Lodge Toyota. We had an eventful day.  Unfortunately I didn’t qualify up as high as I wanted to and we were stuck in the middle of the pack and there was a wreck early in the race that we took a little damage from, but we rebounded from that and were coming back through.  Then we got put in the wall from the 9 truck (Ron Hornaday Jr.), then we got a pit road penalty and then the rain came and then we got another pit road penalty.  We had some cosmetic damage and fought loose and worked hard to fix it and when we finally got it fixed we were a little too tight and then it rained again.”

DAVID STARR, No. 81 Build Your Future/Zachry’s Tundra, Arrington Racing Finishing Position:  14th

ROSS CHASTAIN, No. 08 Florida Watermelon Association Toyota Tundra, Green Light Racing Finishing Position:  15th

JOHN WES TOWNLEY, No. 09 Barberitos Toyota Tundra, RAB Racing Finishing Position:  16th

DAKODA ARMSTRONG, No. 98 EverFi.com Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing Finishing Position:  20th How was your first Dover race? “The EverFi team and Dan Stillman (crew chief) made a lot of adjustments today on our Tundra but we just couldn’t make it much better.  The truck would bottom out pretty hard on entry and then wash up the track.  I couldn’t get a run on anyone even if I was faster just because we were hurting so bad entering the corner.”

JOHNNY SAUTER, No. 13 Hot Honeys/Curb Records Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing Finishing Position:  24th

CHRIS JONES, No. 07 Wear Your Gear Toyota Tundra Finishing Position:  31st