DOVER, Del. (May 11, 2010) Every speedway the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series visits presents a different set of challenges for drivers like Tayler Malsam, but some are more challenging than others.
A case in point would be Dover International Speedway, the next stop on the 2010 schedule. One of just three one-mile tracks on the series schedule, Dover is a high-banked concrete oval with a very appropriate nickname: The Monster Mile.
“It’s a tough track, a hard place but a lot of fun,” Malsam said of Dover. “The truck feels different (on concrete) — looser. It feels fast, but the speeds aren’t fast-fast. There are a lot of elevation changes coming out of and going into the turns. It’s just a hard place to run well.”
The sixth of 25 series races this season, the Dover 200 is this Friday. The race is slated to begin at 1:45 p.m. (PT), with SPEED’s broadcast tape-delayed at 5 p.m. (PT).
Malsam will once again be driving the No. 56 Toyota Tundra for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Joining the Pacific Northwest native at Dover will be team owner Kyle Busch, who will once again be in the No. 18 for KBM after giving Brian Ickler the chance to drive in the series’ last race, at Kansas.
This will be the 11th NASCAR truck race at Dover, a venue where no series driver has visited Victory Lane more than once and only Mike Skinner has won multiple poles, in 2007 and 2008. Malsam finished 12th at the Monster Mile last season in a race that featured a record number of leaders (nine) and lead changes (12), and was the first series victory for Brian Scott.
Although earning his first win and becoming the 11th different driver to finish first at Dover are tempting prospects to think about, Malsam and Busch are more focused on getting the sophomore driver a result that matches the effort he’s putting in.
“We need to get consistent, so top fives, top 10s, we need to be right there,” Busch said of his expectations for Malsam over the next few races. “Tayler is running for the championship this year, so we’ve got to get him consistent enough.”
Malsam looked strong early in Kansas but finished 22nd after being wrecked by another driver. The Sammamish, Wash., native started 20th and had just moved into fourth place on lap 34 when Rick Crawford got loose under eventual winner Johnny Sauter and spun out, putting Malsam into the wall. He lost several laps while in the pits for repairs and came back out in 26th, but was able to log enough laps to make up a few spots.
The Kansas result knocked him out of the top 10 in series points for the first time since the season opener at Dayonta — a race where he started sixth but was also collected in an early accident caused by another driver. Earlier in the season Malsam lost a possible top-five finish in Martinsville when a tire blew out with just two laps to go. But just days after the Kansas race Malsam was more encouraged than frustrated.
“We got the bad end of the deal (in Kansas) but I couldn’t do much about it,” Malsam said. “I was happy because I knew we had a chance to run fast and finish high up — I think we maybe even had something for Sauter. So that made it a little better.”
After Dover the series visits a pair of fast mile-and-a-half intermediate tracks — Malsam’s favorite type of venue — as the schedule begins to pick up after an on-again/off-again start to the 2010 season. With Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C. a week after Dover and Texas Motor Speedway on June 4, Malsam and his KBM team are hoping a string of solid finishes puts them back in championship contention.
On the Web
www.taylermalsam.com
www.oneeightyracing.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment