Bristol Visit Win-Win Proposition For KBM, Scott

Bristol Visit Win-Win Proposition For KBM, Scott

Kyle Busch Motorsports remains winless in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series but this could be the week the drought ends. No, Kyle won’t be gunning for a fourth Bristol Motor Speedway victory, but KBM has another concrete specialist in the team’s No. 18 Toyota.

Brian Scott will make his second start of the year for KBM having finished 13th at Dover International Speedway in June. Scott’s only NCWTS victory came at Dover in 2009. He currently drives for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, where he ranks ninth in the standings.

Call it a win-win proposition. KBM gets an accomplished driver – Scott finished fifth in Dover’s Nationwide event, a day after driving the truck – and Scott gets additional track time. The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will be the first to test Bristol’s revamped banking.

“It’s all speculation,” said Scott of whether the racing will be different. “I just kind of wait and see and figure out what it is when I get there. You can expect the high line not to be there [any longer], but who knows?”

The last time Scott competed in a truck at Bristol, 2009, he finished fifth. “It’s a track I enjoy going to,” he said. “I think the extra track time will be beneficial. At Dover (in the Nationwide Series car), it was like we were up to speed instantly. It just paid off for Saturday.”

KBM’s best finish of the current season came at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Jason Leffler finished fourth. Denny Hamlin scored the 2010 championship organization’s most recent victory last October at Martinsville Speedway.

Bristol A Veteran’s Track Regardless Of Configuration

For most of the 2012 season, the NCWTS’ “young guns” have stolen the spotlight for the veterans. This could be the week the tables turn.

Bristol Motor Speedway – old, new, reconfigured, shaved or whatever – promises to be the ultimate test of aggression tempered by patience.

In other words, right up a veteran’s alley. The track’s only first-time winner was Rick Carelli in 1996.

“Bristol is always a wild card because it’s a high-banked short track; you never know what is going to happen. Tempers can flare and you can easily get caught up in someone else’s mess because everything happens so quickly,” said two-time champion Todd Bodine, who won June’s concrete race at Dover.

No driver has won more NCWTS short-track races than Ron Hornaday Jr. Two of those 22 wins came at Bristol, including 1998, Hornaday’s second (of four) championship season. The 51-time NCWTS winner has yet to visit Victory Lane in 2012 and the UNOH 200 seems a likely event to break the drought.

“The last four races have been at tracks that I've never won at and getting back to a place like Bristol will be refreshing,” Hornaday said. “We found some things in our trucks in the last couple weeks and I feel like I finally have the trucks where I can drive them.”

Piquet Latest To Crest On Turner Motorsports Flood

Turner Motorsports couldn’t buy a victory in 2011. Now it seems that Steve Turner has a long-term lease on the winner’s circle.

Nelson Piquet Jr. became the team’s third NASCAR Camping World Truck driver winner at Michigan International Speedway. Piquet, three-time winner James Buescher and Kasey Kahne have combined to hand Turner five series victories – with three more in the NASCAR Nationwide Series by Buescher, Piquet and Justin Allgaier thrown in for good measure.

Brazilian Piquet, the second foreign-born driver to win in the series, is the 10th different winner in the season’s first 12 races, breaking a record for different winners over the first 12 events. Five first-time winners are the most since 2006, when there were six. The all-time record is seven (three times).

Michigan kicked off the second half of the season by deadlocking the championship standings. Timothy Peters and Sunoco Rookie of the Year leader Ty Dillon have scored an identical 449 points with Peters the de facto leader by virtue of his Iowa victory. Buescher is six points behind in third place.

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Etc.

 Hornaday is the only Bristol winner expected to compete in Wednesday’s UNOH 200. Jack Sprague (1999) and Travis Kvapil (2003) also won at Bristol in their championship seasons. … Johnny Benson was the last NCWTS regular to win in Thunder Valley in 2007. Five of the last six races have been won by NASCAR Sprint Cup veterans. Brad Keselowski and Brendan Gaughan are the only NSCS points-eligible drivers entered this year. … Ryan Blaney makes series debuts this week driving for Brad Keselowski Racing. … Jason White (second) and Sunoco Rookie Dakoda Armstrong (third) posted career-best finishes in Michigan.