ThorSport, which won the 2013 NCWTS drivers’ championship with Crafton and the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards championship, will test its 2014 Toyota Tundras Monday and Tuesday on the 2.5-mile Daytona trioval with sessions running from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. ET each day.
Crafton will test a 2014-spec version of the No. 88 Menards Tundra with which he finished ninth last year at Daytona. It was the first of 16 consecutive top-10 finishes he opened his and ThorSport’s first NASCAR national series championship season with.
Sauter will have the rebodied No. 98 Nextant Aerospace / Curb Records Tundra with which he won the 2013 season opener. A year ago Sauter followed that up with a NASCAR record-tying second consecutive win to open the season, on the Martinsville Speedway short track.
At the test Sauter will work with new crew chief Gene Wachtel, an engineer and motorsports veteran with Sprint Cup and Truck Series experience, for the first time at a racetrack. Wachtel began working with ThorSport at the end of 2013.
“We’re real happy with the way our 2014 Toyota Tundras turned out and we’re looking forward to getting them out on the racetrack to see how this new body configuration performs,” ThorSport team manager David Pepper said. “Matt has made no secret of how fired-up he is to get going on defending his championship and giving Johnny a chance to work with Gene at a racetrack is equally important.”
Crafton got a head start on Daytona testing when he stood-in for a full day Friday for Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Paul Menard, who was unable to attend the Daytona test. Crafton — whose trucks, like Paul Menard’s cars, are sponsored by the Menards Midwest home-improvement store chain — reportedly had the third-best speed in both single-car runs and drafting.
At Daytona, where trucks will test for the first time since 2008, the vehicles will have a completely different front-end body package, including hood, fenders, nose and “splitter” configurations plus a different radiator and cooling duct arrangement. The 2014 trucks will also have new tail panels.
For ThorSport, former three-time champion crew chief Dennis Connor, who played an integral role in the second half of last season as Sauter’s crew chief on the No. 98 team, earning eight top-10 finishes in the last 10 races, including a win at Talladega and two seconds on the way to fourth in the championship, will be at the test coordinating the trucks’ activities.
Live timing and scoring for the scheduled four test sessions over the two days, with a daily lunch break scheduled from 12-1 p.m. ET, will be available at www.nascar.com. Updates will also be available on Twitter (@ThorSportRacing) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/ThorSportRacing).
Nextant Aerospace is recognized as the first company in the world to introduce aircraft remanufacturing to the business jet market. The Nextant 400XTi is a completely-rebuilt Beechjet 400A/XP with Williams FJ44-3AP engines and the Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21™ integrated avionics suite. The new aircraft also has major aerodynamic enhancements and an improved engine mounting configuration with redesigned nacelles and pylons. The 400XTi is delivered with a two-year full-aircraft warranty and after-sales support provided by a global network of owned and authorized service centers. Founded in 2007, Nextant is based in Cleveland, Ohio. Nextant is a Directional Aviation Capital company. For more information, please visit, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @nextantaero or join us on LinkedIn.
Curb Records is one of the world’s leading independent music companies. Owned and operated by Mike Curb since 1962, Curb Records has achieved 375 Billboard number one records, nearly twelve hundred Billboard Top Ten records and charted just under four thousand Billboard Records. Today’s roster includes some of the top names in Country, Christian and Pop/Rock music. Curb Records was honored as Billboard Magazine’s 2001 Country Music Label of the Year and Radio & Records Magazine’s 2005 Overall Gold Label of the Year. For more information, visit www.curb.com.
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