Going into the race, Joey Coulter was excited for the Chevrolet Silverado 250, having a blast, just looking for some more speed.
“We practiced good during the weekend; just didn’t get the qualifying run we were hoping for,” he commented before the race. “Made a few changes and I think our Monster Energy Tundra is going to be really good today.”
Coulter also commented that he was looking forward to racing side-by-side as during practice, everybody stuck to staying single-file and spread out.
“We’re all going to have to figure out how to pass, run side-by-side real quick,” he added. “That’s probably going to take a few laps to get everybody sorted out. I think once the race gets going, there’s going to be quite a bit of passing, definitely lot of action.”
The race wouldn’t go as the driver of the No. 18 Monster Energy Toyota Tundra would’ve hoped for as he would lose control of his truck in turn eight, making heavy contact with the tire barrier on lap 10. The contact caused damage to the left front nose, radiator and oil cooler. Coulter make it back on track, though finished 26th.
The bad luck at CTMP this past weekend matches that of his season as he currently sits 12th in points with three top fives and five top 10s in 14 races.
“We’ve had a lot of speed,” he said. “We’ve been pretty happy with how our Tundra has been running, just haven’t had the luck to go along with it. A lot of blown tires, just things that you get into those situations where you feel you can’t do anything right. The bright side is we have fast trucks when we don’t have bad luck.”
This year marks Coulter’s first year at Kyle Busch Motorsports, after moving over from Richard Childress Racing over the off-season.
“I think Joey had a good year last year and had success in the truck series with a win at Pocono, had some good runs where he showed speed later in the year, and that stood out right there,” Busch said Coulter and his reason for hiring him in February.
Coulter says that having Kyle Busch as his car owner is “pretty awesome”.
“A lot of information for sure is available,” he said. “He’s one of those drivers that can diagnose anything, really pays attention to detail. For a younger driver to be able to ask him what such and such feels like, and his answers right on the money helps makes things right pretty quick.”
The road course race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park marked just the tip of the iceberg in this year’s diversity for the Camping World Truck Series as they’re running restrictor plate tracks, intermediate tracks, short tracks and dirt also this year.
“I love it,” Coulter said of the diversity. “When I was racing in the ARCA Series, one of my favourite parts was running all those different race tracks within a month basically. So when I heard where the trucks were going to race this weekend with dirt and road courses, I was pretty excited about it. I like having it mix-up and really adds another level of challenge to the drivers and show people what kind of drivers they are, whether they’re just short track drivers or have their hands on the whole spectrum.”
One of the things that got tried out this year is the “heat qualifying” format as it was used at Eldora Speedway mid-summer to set the field. Whether it’s a good idea to possibly try it out at a different track, Coulter is unsure.
“It’s hard to say because the dirt track changes so much faster than the pavement does,” he said. “So I’m not real sure. I don’t think it’d hurt to try it once or twice, but I’m not sure that it’d make much of a difference. Also with Eldora being a one-off, lot of trucks that aren’t locked in trying to make the race, less trucks running in the field there. A place like Martinsville, it’s more of your full time guys with a few extra trucks. I don’t know but it’s something that it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
