MADISON, Ill. (July 17, 2010) — After fighting handling and communication issues for most of Saturday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway, Pacific Northwest native Tayler Malsam found himself in the wrong place twice in the closing laps before finishing 18th.
“We were way too tight all day, couldn’t get up off the turns,” Malsam said after the race. “Then the radio went out and I couldn’t talk to the crew. Everything bad that could happen did in one day. We were lucky to come out with a top-20 finish.”
In fact, the No. 10 Iron Horse Jeans Toyota driven by the 21-year-old from Sammamish, Wash., was a smoking wreck when it slid across the finish line at the end of the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250. Along with several other drivers, Malsam was collected in a frontstretch wreck started when race winner Carl Edwards spun Brad Keselowski after both came out of turn 4 heading to the checkered flag.
Keselowski, who had led 136 of 200 laps, hit the outside wall and then came back across the track to strike the wall separating pit road from the track, causing a huge pileup as following drivers checked up or maneuvered to avoid him. After getting hit hard by Shelby Howard, Keselowski’s wrecked car slid across the stripe to give the series point leader a 14th-place finish.
Reed Sorenson, Malsam’s Braun Racing teammate, finished second with pole sitter Trevor Bayne in third, Paul Menard fourth and Steve Wallace rounding out the top five. Brian Scott, another Braun Racing driver, finished sixth.
While other drivers wrecked or dropped behind with mechanical problems on a hot, humid night at the mostly flat 1.25-mile oval, Malsam seemed poised to record a workmanlike top-25 finish as the laps wound down. But with six laps to go to the end, Malsam and Joe Nemechek were collected when Justin Allgaier spun out after cutting down a tire as a result of racing three-wide with Bayne and Wallace.
That caution set up a two-lap sprint to the finish, with Edwards and Keselowski dueling for the lead. After Edwards moved ahead to take the white flag as leader, Keselowski tried root him out of the groove entering Turn 2. Edwards went wide, but pulled ahead again down the backstretch before Keselowski got the advantage entering Turn 3. Keselowski pulled ahead through the final turn before Edwards used the nose of his car to spin him and take the win.
"I couldn't let him take it from me. I had to do what I had to do,” Edwards said in Victory Lane. “I think he could have gotten me without hitting me. I think his car was good enough we could have been side by side at the finish line. I would have much rather had that. But we got the trophy."
Malsam started from the 20th spot on the grid, his best qualifying result in six career Nationwide Series races, but he slid back several positions early on and fell a lap down. After getting his lap back with the Lucky Dog free pass, Malsam lost his radio communications but he settled in to running just outside the top-20, eventually going two laps down on the mostly-flat 1.25-mile oval.
“We missed the setup in general from the start of the weekend,” Malsam said. “We struggled all race long but now we’ll put it behind us and look forward to doing a better job at Iowa.”
Malsam will miss the next Nationwide Series race at O’Reilly Raceway Park on July 24 because Braun Racing has prior sponsorship commitments. He will return to series action at Iowa Speedway on July 31
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