MALSAM FINISHES 12TH IN NASCAR NATIONWIDE RACE AT THE GLEN

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (Aug. 7 2010) — A solid day on the track and in the pits lifted Tayler Malsam to a 12th-place finish, just one spot shy of his NASCAR Nationwide Series career best, in the Zippo 200 at The Glen on Saturday afternoon at Watkins Glen International.

“The day ended much better than it started, that’s for sure,” said the 21-year-old Sammamish, Wash., native, who gained seven positions after the final restart with 16 laps to go. “(Crew chief Stewart) Cooper and the (No. 10 Braun Racing) crew did a good job keeping me motivated and improving the car. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but it was our lucky day.”

Polesitter Marcos Ambrose led 60 of 82 laps to win for the third straight time at Watkins Glen, matching Terry Labonte who won consecutive series races at the track in 1994, ‘95 and ‘96. Joey Logano finished second by holding off a large charge from Kevin Harvick, who overcame first-lap contact, a pit-road speeding penalty and narrowly missing a 10-car pileup to finish third. Point leader Brad Keselowski was fourth, increasing his series lead over Carl Edwards to 327 points after Edwards retired with an engine problem, and Kyle Busch led 14 laps but faded late to cross the line in fifth.

In a few of his seven previous Nationwide starts this season — and in several NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts before that — Malsam has been on the other side of the luck equation, getting caught up in incidents caused by other drivers.

But on Saturday, Malsam was able to slow down and avoid the multi-car incident in front of him on lap 24, which was a result of the field going two- and three-wide after a restart. The resulting cleanup required a 25-minute red flag period, but once the racing resumed Malsam had gained valuable track position that he was able to improve on as the laps wound down.

While Malsam was moving the No. 10 Iron Horse Jeans Toyota forward, his pit crew was working equally as hard to improve the handling of a car that wasn’t turning as well as the driver would have liked. Each pit stop was flawless and made the car easier to drive — no mean feat as recent safety improvements at Watkins Glen including paving run-off areas and safer barriers reduced the number of caution laps.

“We were getting faster as the race kept going on, and I kept digging, trying to find something on the track,” Malsam said. “We were tight all day, getting killed in the slower corners, but the pit crew did an awesome job getting the car to work as well as it could.”

In his first visit to Watkins Glen, Malsam qualified 27th and he remained outside of the top 20 during the opening laps of the race, moving forward only when cars ahead of him pitted or spun out without bringing out the caution flag. After making a green-flag pit stop on lap 19, he restarted 30th right before the big wreck.

Malsam’s series best finish, 11th, came in his Nationwide debut on June 5 at Nashville Superspeedway. After starting last due to an engine change and then going a lap down early in the race, Malsam used the wave-around rule to get back on the lead lap and then moved steadily through the field to challenge for a top-10 finish in the closing laps of the race.

Next up for Malsam and the Nationwide Series is Michigan International Speedway, a track the Northwest native knows well from ARCA and NASCAR truck series starts, on Aug. 14.