MALSAM RETURNS TO MICHIGAN WITH NASCAR NATONWIDE SERIES

BROOKLYN, Mich. (Aug. 11 2010) — One week after a very successful first visit to Watkins Glen International, Pacific Northwest native Tayler Malsam returns to a familiar venue for his next NASCAR Nationwide Series start in the No. 10 Iron Horse Jeans Toyota for Braun Racing.



The Carfax 250 at Michigan International Speedway will be broadcast by ESPN at 11 a.m. (PT) on Saturday. SPEED will televise qualifying for the race earlier Saturday, at 7 a.m. (PT), and will also show Friday’s practice at 10:30 a.m. (PT).



Although the 21-year-old from Sammamish, Wash., has raced at Michigan International Speedway in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series — finishing sixth in June 2009 — and in the ARCA stock car series in 2008, on Saturday will be driving the new Nationwide Series Car of Tomorrow (CoT) for just the second time. To help teams better prepare the CoT for the race, NASCAR has scheduled two non-televised practice sessions for Thursday.



“I don’t know what the new CoT cars will be like at Michigan,” Malsam said. “In the past we could go wide open in qualifying, but who knows what we’re going to get out of those. I do like that track a lot, or I did in trucks and ARCA cars.”



Malsam’s concerns about the CoT stem from the car’s debut on July 2 at Daytona International Speedway. A longer, higher car designed to be safer and easier for NASCAR to inspect — much like Cup series CoT that debuted three years ago — many drivers at Daytona complained about the handling of the Nationwide CoT, with general impression that the car was very loose.



Teams have tried to address those concerns before the series shifted to Michigan’s 2-mile oval, which at 12-18 degrees of banking is considerably flatter than the high banked Daytona. Without that extra banking to lean on, drivers struggling with a loose vehicle — where the rear end of the car tends to swing toward the outer wall — must slow down to maintain control, breaking their momentum forward.



“I know Braun Racing has taken the CoT to the wind tunnel a couple of times, which is what we needed to find more downforce,” Malsam said. “That should help the car’s handling, especially at Michigan with less banking than Daytona.”



Scheduled to be the full-time series vehicle in 2011, Saturday’s race at Michigian will be the second of four races this season for the CoT, with Malsam slated to run all four including Richmond on Sept. 10 and Charlotte on Oct. 15.



After surviving a wild scramble during a green-white-checkered ending, Malsam finished 18th in the CoT debut at Daytona He began the final restart in 24th, moved up four spots after the final green flag and then gained two more spots when cars ahead of him collided as every driver jostled for the best possible finish.



Malsam is coming off a solid run last weekend at Watkins Glen, where he finished 12th — just one spot below his career best Nationwide Series result, an 11th at his series debut in the February race at Daytona.