Last months NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona ended just a few laps short of the finish line for SS Racing’s Ross Chastain. This week at the Martinsville Speedway the Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender is looking to complete all 250 laps on the paperclip shaped half-mile track.
The Kroger 250 will be the enthusiastic young driver from South Florida’s first NCWTS start at the Martinsville Speedway. He has two previous short-track starts in the truck series with an impressive average finish of 14.5 including a top-ten run last year in his first series start at Lucas Oil Raceway.
“I’ve never seen the track before,” Chastain said. “I still think we should run good, I ran good on the first short, flat track that I raced on last year at Indy and this team has always run good at Martinsville.”
Chastain has an experienced crew led by Bryan Berry behind him who has been working hard preparing his ASI Limited Toyota for the second race of the 2012 season. Ross has listened carefully from the coaching he has received and knows what is required to survive on the smallest and tightest track the series will visit.
“Qualifying is going to be important because there is going to be 42 trucks on the entry list,” Ross explained. “There is going to be a bunch of guys trying to get in so it’s going to be tough to get a good starting spot. You can drive to the front; there are guys that have done it, but your just fighting all the time. We would like to get a good starting spot and try to stay out of that traffic deep in the field.”
“We just need to stay out of trouble and not cause our own trouble, we should have a good run,” he concluded. “At a place like Martinsville everyone is going to make some mistakes, we just don’t want to do anything that will cost us a good finish.”
Ross will join other NCWTS drivers on Friday afternoon from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the midway near the main ticket office for a free autograph session.
The Kroger 250 is the 272nd consecutive NCWTS start for the SS Green Light Racing team and the 7th career start for Chastain in the Truck Series. There are 42 trucks on the preliminary entry list for the Kroger 250. Jake Crum will pilot the Bandit Clippers No. 07 for SS Green Light Racing.
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