FORT WORTH, Texas (Nov. 5, 2010) — A promising beginning came undone for Pacific Northwest native Tayler Malsam a third of the way through Friday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Malsam surged ahead 10 spots from his 20th-place starting position in the first lap of the WinStar World Casino 350k before a series of incidents put him three laps down and finishing in 21st position while driving the No. 25 CoinStar/H-E-B Grocery Toyota Tundra for Randy Moss Motorsports.
“It’s a shame because the truck was hauling even though it was too tight all weekend,” said Malsam after the race. “We worked on the truck when we could, but after everything that happened, it was messed up pretty bad.”
Kyle Busch, Malsam’s former owner and teammate in the truck series, got around point leader Todd Bodine shortly after the final restart with 21 laps to go en route to his 23rd career series win. Johnny Sauter and Matt Crafton finished second and third respectively after briefly pressuring Busch before falling back as the laps wound down.
Fourth place went to Bodine, who increased his point lead over No. 2 Aric Almirola and can clinch a second series championship with a strong run at the second to last race of the season next weekend in Phoenix. Cup regular Elliott Sadler, who announced Friday he will race full-time in the NASCAR Nationwide Series next season for Kevin Harvick Inc., rounded out the top five in a KHI entry.
For Malsam, “everything that happened” started with an unexpected pit stop from seventh place for a right rear tire that started to come apart after just 33 laps of racing. The situation improved for the 21-year-old from Sammamish, Wash., was able to get back the lap he lost from that stop when the second of four cautions came out 10 laps later.
But taking the wave around to get back on the lead lap put Malsam at the rear of the field, meaning he would have less time to react to incidents in front of him on the fast 1.5-mile Texas speedway. Shortly after the restart the truck of Miguel Paludo spun ahead of Malsam exiting turn 2, and although defending series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. saw the Paludo spin and was checking up to avoid it, Malsam didn’t see it in time. Malsam tried to go high around Hornaday, but there was no room and instead he hit the outside wall and collected the veteran driver’s truck.
After the contact, while the trucks were slowing on the backstretch, Hornaday showed his displeasure by turning Malsam’s truck around under caution.
“It was pretty fast, I didn’t have a lot of time to react,” said Malsam. “I think if he looks at the tape he’ll see it was just a racing thing, that there was nothing intentional. The damage to our truck was from the wall, not Hornaday, but I could make it work.”
Although he made numerous pit stops under yellow to repair the damage, Malsam was able to stay on the lead lap and even begin to move forward again after the restart. As the race progressed through a cycle of green-flag pit stops, he made it as high as sixth place before losing a lap and several positions while pitting.
Before the cycle of pit stops was complete, which would have put him back on the lead lap, Malsam got loose and brushed the truck of Mario Gosselin, which dislodged the No. 25’s bumper cover and caused NASCAR officials to send Malsam back into the pits under the black flag for repairs with less than 30 laps to go.
“I got loose under him, that was more my fault than anything else,” Malsam said of the incident. “The truck was terribly tight at that point, but I was making it work and I think we could’ve gotten close to a top-10 finish if it wasn’t for that.”
Although he was able to make up one position before the end of the race, being three laps down with so few laps remaining meant there wasn’t enough time to do more.
Malsam will make his next truck series start in the No. 25 for RMM at Phoenix International Raceway next weekend. He is also slated to drive in the season finale on Nov. 19 at Homestead-Miami.
On the Web
For more information about Tayler Malsam visit www.taylermalsam.com, or follow @TaylerMalsam on Twitter and “NASCAR Driver Tayler Malsam” on Facebook.
To learn more about Coinstar and the H-E-B Grocery chain, please visit www.coinstar.com and www.heb.com, respectively.
About One Eighty
One Eighty is a privately-held company located in downtown Seattle, Washington. Chairman and CEO, Dan Madsen has developed a combination of people, platform and pipeline focused on changing the way business is done. His drive is to make One Eighty not only a great company to work with, but also a great company to work for. Since 1988, his business philosophy has been simple – Always put people first and positively impact the lives of employees, customers and business associates everyday. This philosophy has been applied to One Eighty’s senior housing brands (Leisure Care, Leisure Care Premiere, Dolcetto and Signature 180.) They operate over 40 communities and nearly 7,000 units in the Western United States and Canada. One Eighty also owns hospitality brands Twist Travel™, PrimeFit™ and Edibility™ and is involved in One Eighty Racing, a NASCAR race team. For more information visit www.oneeightytwist.com
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