Pre-Race Notes and Quotes
Bristol Motor Speedway
O’Reilly 200 Presented by Valvoline
August 19, 2009
MALSAM AT BRISTOL: Malsam will be making his 17th start in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series when the green flag drops for the O’Reilly 200 Presented by Valvoline at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. This week’s event at BMS marks the one-year anniversary of Malsam’s debut in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competition. Malsam qualified in the 33rd position for that event, but was involved in an accident on lap 53. This trip to BMS will mark the first time that the Seattle native will return to a track in NCWTS competition for the second time.
NASHVILLE REWIND: Malsam and the One Eighty team rebounded and finished ninth after a practice accident forced them to pull out the backup truck for the Toyota Tundra 200 at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway. The event’s top-10 finish was the seventh of the season for the Randy Moss Motorsports team.
WOLCOTT’S WEAPON: Crew Chief Doug Wolcott and the One Eighty team will utilize Randy Moss Motorsports chassis No. 40 for this Wednesday’s race. This is the third time the team will unload this particular truck this season after first running it at Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park in June. It was last seen at O’Reilly Raceway Park (Indianapolis), where Malsam qualified in the 10th spot on the grid and went on to post his best short-track effort of the season with a seventh-place finish.
TAYLER’S TAKE ON BRISTOL: “I know Doug had a really good truck last year at Bristol, so I feel confident that we’ll be good right off the hauler. We need to make sure to get in a good qualifying lap because it’s so easy to go a lap down there really quickly if you don’t start up front. Everything happens so fast at a short, tight track like Bristol. I know we have the potential to run well, so we’ll need to concentrate on being on top of our game and doing our best to stay out of trouble for 200 laps.”
WOLCOTT’S WORDS: “I think we’ve got a pretty good set up to start the day at Bristol because last year my truck sat on the pole and finished third. Tayler ran 40 or 50 laps at Bristol in last year’s race so he’s got some laps at this track under his belt. We saw last year that with the new surface you could run several different grooves. Tayler loves to run that outside line, so I expect we’ll see him up there pretty early and petty often if the truck will allow it.
“The most important thing the driver needs to do is to make certain they stay alert and look way ahead. It’s a tough track because not only do you have to worry about racing the cars on your lap, but you start to encounter lapped traffic pretty quickly. Everything happens so fast there that Tayler will need to make sure that he stays really alert because the reaction time between what the spotter tells him is happening around him and his ability to avoid it is pretty short.”
BATTLING IT OUT FOR ROTY: The Rookie of the Year points battle is heating up once again with Malsam still in the lead over second-place Johnny Sauter by four points. Malsam is currently the highest ranking Raybestos ROTY candidate in the NCWTS championship point standings, holding down seventh place.
POINT AND CLICK: Fans can continue to vote for their favorite driver for the Most Popular Driver Award through the end of October. The results of the online balloting will be announced at the NCWTS awards banquet at the end of the season. Visit www.nascar.com for more details and to cast your vote for Tayler.
WATCH AND LISTEN: Race coverage will be televised on SPEED and heard live on select affiliates of MRN Radio and Sirius-XM NASCAR Radio Channel 128, beginning at 8 p.m. (ET).
ABOUT ONE EIGHTY: One Eighty, founded in 1976, encompasses hospitality, senior housing and international brands, all of which require their customers to “Twist Your Thinking.” One Eighty’s hospitality brand has three divisions – Edibility, PrimeFit and Twist Travel, which offer a bold take on their individual specialties. Edibility includes retirement community signature food items. Also, PrimeFit and Twist Travel take a similar cover-all-the-bases approach. For more information about One Eighty, please visit www.oneeightytwist.com
ABOUT RANDY MOSS MOTORSPORTS: Randy Moss Motorsports ownership consists of Randy Moss, New England Patriots All-Pro Wide Receiver, and David Dollar, a long-time participant in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The team fields the No. 81 Toyota Tundra and the No. 5 Toyota Tundra full-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. For more information about Randy Moss Motorsports, please visit www.randymossmotorsports.com.