MARTINSVILLE, Va. — (March 27, 2010) There are plenty of positives for Tayler Malsam to take away from Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
It just may take a few days for the sting to go away.
The Northwest native limped past the checkered flag in 14th place after blowing a tire with two laps to go in the Kroger 250, losing what looked to be a solid top-10 finish in the blink of an eye at the paperclip-shaped half-mile oval.
“It stinks, but we can’t do anything about it,” Malsam said after the race. “We learned a lot and showed we can run up front. You just want to get a good finish and the last three races we haven’t been able to do that.”
Current NASCAR Cup series points leader Kevin Harvick dominated the race for his fourth straight truck series victory, starting on the pole and leading 187 of 250 laps. Harvick briefly fell to sixth after a round of pit stops during a caution just past the halfway point, but he got around Timothy Peters with 61 laps remaining to regain the lead for good.
Four-time defending series champion Ron Hornaday, who also races for Kevin Harvick Inc., finished second; Brian Ickler, driving in place of Malsam’s team owner Kyle Busch, was third; Peters was fourth and former champion Johnny Benson rounded out the top five.
During the first two-thirds of the race Malsam ran as high as seventh but spent most of his time between 10th and 15th. The Sammamish, Wash., native gained positions on longer green-flag runs, but his Toyota Tundra took a beating from incidental contact — “That’s Martinsville,” said Malsam — and when two caution-causing accidents occurred near him.
Despite the disappointment of losing his first top-10 finish of the season, Malsam and his Kyle Busch Motorsports crew have some positives to take away from Martinsville.
Despite struggling with handling issues during Friday’s two practice sessions — Malsam was no better than 20th quick — the crew improved the truck before and during the race, giving Malsam the chance to remain near the front of the field. Malsam also continued to develop his working relationship with crew chief Dan Stillman, who joined KBM for its inaugural season racing in the truck series after working with Carl Edwards in the Nationwide Series.
Perhaps best of all, after the race the unofficial point standings showed Malsam had moved up a spot to No. 8.
“I’m not sure how that happened,” said Malsam with a small laugh. “But, it’s good to be up there when we’re not running as well as we should, so that when things turn around we’ll be right in the middle of it.”
Malsam finished the season-opening race at Daytona 17th after being collected in an accident. He battled an ill-handling truck to a 13th-place finish three weeks ago in Atlanta.
In all there were 11 caution periods in Saturday’s race, with the final yellow flag waving with about 25 laps to go when Johnny Sauter spun out after getting bumped from behind by Hornaday. Sauter, who collected Mike Skinner’s truck in the incident, had some heated words for Hornaday on pit road after the race.
After that caution, Malsam restarted in ninth and he had advanced one position before blowing his left-front tire. With sparks flying from under his truck, Malsam had no choice but to remain on the track for the final two laps and salvage the best finish he could.
Qualifying on Friday was rained out and the field was set by NASCAR rule, using owners points from last season. Although Harvick did not run the full season last year, he moved the points from Hornaday’s championship team to his second truck, putting the owner-driver on the pole. Hornaday started 31st.
KBM purchased the points for Malsam’s truck from Xpress Motorsports before the start of the season. The No. 18 truck, which Ickler and Busch will share driving duties in this season, started 32nd. Busch was originally slated to drive at Martinsville and Ickler next week at Nashville, but Busch switched the schedule when a new sponsor wanted the Cup star behind the wheel next weekend.
On the Web
www.taylermalsam.com
www.oneeightyracing.com
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