MALSAM, NASCAR TRUCK SERIES READY FOR SOME SHORT-TRACK RACING

For immediate release, One Eighty Racing (09-10)
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — (March 24, 2010) It is one of NASCAR’s iconic tracks, but Pacific Northwest native Tayler Malsam didn’t circle in his day planner the date of Saturday’s visit to Martinsville Speedway by the Camping World Truck Series.

“It’s kind of fun, but you have to run the bottom all the time and wait around to lap 200 to go,” Malsam said of the unusually-shaped half-mile oval. “Not one of my favorite tracks, but I know the fans like it.”

Saturday’s Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway will be televised at 10:30 a.m. (PT) on SPEED. The cable network will also broadcast truck series practice at 10 a.m. (PT) and qualifying at 1:30 p.m. (PT) on Friday.

Martinsville is said to resemble two flat 800-feet drag strips connected at either end by tight, gently sloped corners, earning it the nickname “The Paperclip.” With 36racetrucks hitting speeds in excess of 100 mph on the straightaways, quarters are close and drivers have little time to react. As with any short track the NASCAR truck series visits, contact is inevitable.

“If you can get your truck to take off in the corners you can be fast, but if not …” said Malsam, who finished 14th in the first of two Martinsville races last season. “The goal there is to make the straightaways as long as possible, to not use up your brakes. And we’ll have to use the ‘chrome horn’ a lot to move slower trucks out of the way.”

The Sammamish, Wash., native did not do as well in the second Martinsville race in 2009, starting 10th but dropping out with transmission problems just past the halfway point and finishing 28th. The Camping World Truck Series will race twice at Martinsville again this year, returning in late October.

Martinsville Speedway pre-dates the formation of NASCAR by two years and is one of four tracks from the truck series’ inaugural schedule in 1995 to host a race this season. Originally intended to bring NASCAR racing to smaller tracks, the “SuperTruck Series” also visited two Northwest tracks in its first season: Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Wash., and Oregon’s Portland Speedway. NASCAR later modified the series’ schedule to include a mix of short tracks, superspeedways and intermediate tracks. Along with Martinsville, just Bristol, Phoenix and O’Reilly Raceway Park are still on the 2010 schedule.

Saturday’s Kroger 250 marks Malsam’s third race in the No. 56 Toyota Tundra for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Three weeks ago in Atlanta, Malsam fought an ill-handling truck early but bounced back for a 13th-place finish in the E-Z-Go 250. That result boosted him to ninth overall in the series points, up eight spots after he was collected in a multi-truck accident en route to a 17th-place finish in the season-opener at Daytona in mid-February.

Martinsville also marks Malsam’s third race with Dan Stillman as his crew chief. Last year, Stillman was atop the pit box for Nationwide Series runner-up Carl Edwards. Edwards ran very well at short tracks in 2009, including winning the Nationwide race at O’Reilly Raceway Park. Malsam is looking forward to improving his short-track results by working with Stillman.

“His short-track setup program is good, and he stays calm no matter what happens,” Malsam said of Stillman. “I think he’s a smart cookie when it comes to that, he doesn’t get aggravated on the box. If he stays calm, I stay calm.”

Malsam’s team owner and defending NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Kyle Busch is No. 5 in the truck series standings after finishing second in Atlanta to fellow Cup star Kevin Harvick.

On the Web
www.taylermalsam.com