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TOYOTA NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) - Post-Race Notes & Quotes - Iowa SpeedwayMIKE SKINNER, No. 5 Toyota of Des Moines Toyota Tundra, Randy Moss Motorsports
Finishing Position: 1st
How good does it feel to win tonight?
“This one only took us a couple of hours, the last one took three days. I’ll tell you, this Tundra, Jon Dysinger (engine builder) and those guys up there at Triad, they do such a fantastic job. This team, David Dollar (co-owner, Randy Moss Motorsports), Randy Moss (co-owner, Randy Moss Motorsports) you better call me! It was just awesome. Toyota of Des Moines, Exide Batteries, PC Miler Navigator folks are up here tonight and they were nice enough to help out Tayler (Malsam) on his truck. Man, that was awesome.”
Was your truck as dominate as it looked tonight?
“I tell you, all I did tonight was ride on a thoroughbred. I think I hurt Eric’s (Phillips, crew chief) feelings a little bit yesterday because we took an old backup truck that our teammate gave us that Jeff Hensley and I actually built a couple of years ago and it was faster than this truck and I was struggling to not keep that truck out and race it. And Eric (Phillips, crew chief) said, ‘Just work with me. Just give me a chance and I’ll fix this thing and get it going.’ He went in there and he started building shocks and he really, really won this race. The driver screwed up on pit road but the crew chief did a fantastic job with the truck. Man, it drove good. All of the adjustments and everything was just really, really good. We struggled on pit road this year a lot and tonight they were flawless. The only flaw they had was the driver and we overcame it.”
How important was your win tonight?
“Every win is important. Probably one of the proudest moments in my whole racing career other than the first ever points race at Phoenix where we had to pass Terry Labonte sideways on the last corner to win, the Bristol trophy stands out – that’s huge. I’ve got a trophy at Daytona that’s huge, but we’ve been very, very blessed in our career to get the first of things. We won the first championship, we won the first points race and tonight we won the first race at Iowa. We’ve just been very, very blessed with being able to do that. I’m all for adding some more new tracks. This is pretty cool. Really, I’m all for coming back to Iowa two or three times. I just love this place. We came up here and tested a couple years ago before they banned the testing policy and we were just really, really fast. We took that truck to Kentucky and didn’t really do anything to it and won the race. So I knew when we came back to Iowa this style of track suits my driving style. Obviously it suits Eric (Phillips, crew chief). He did a fantastic job setting the truck up.”
Were you out of gas at the end of the race?
“Well, the motor died coming off of (turn) four there. I don’t know if it was a pick up thing or vapor lock or what it did. It just quit and it quit off of (turn) two and then it quit off of (turn) four. The pressure went all the way down. I think it might have boiled some fuel or something. I just nursed her along there and this thing was so fast through the corner it didn’t matter what it was doing on the straightaway.”
How did you feel on the final restart?
“I was really, really nervous. I started the race in the same place all night and I figured the competition would be thinking, ‘Well, he’s going to change it up. He’s going to do something different.’ So I started it in the same place. Sometimes the biggest surprise is no surprise. We got a really good restart and we came off of (turn) two over there and got back around there and I came off of four and the thing ran out of gas and I looked at the gauge and the fuel pressure was at zero and the thing picked back up. I shook it around a little bit. I yelled at Eric (Phillips, crew chief) and said, ‘I think we’re out of gas, we’re out of gas!’ He’s like, ‘Well just keep going. What do you want me to do about it?’ It picked back up and she made it back around and had enough left for a burnout. So it obviously wasn’t out of gas. Maybe it vapor locked or got hot or something. Maybe my nerves got some air in it, I’m not sure.”
ERIC PHILLIPS, crew chief, No. 5 Toyota of Des Moines Tundra, Randy Moss Motorsports
What did you think of Mike Skinner’s win tonight?
“I knew we had a good truck yesterday. Like Mike (Skinner) said, he liked that other truck but we’ve run this truck a lot. It’s been really good to us. It seems to be really good in race mode and I told him to just stick with me and we’d work on it. And we did make it a lot better. All of my guys did a good job. I knew we had a good truck last night. I’ve been about half sick today, it seems like it’s been so long with the race starting at nine. I’m just really proud of all of the guys on this Tundra and Mike (Skinner) and everybody working on this thing all weekend.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 15 Graceway Pharmaceuticals Toyota Tundra, Billy Ballew Motorsports
Finishing Position: 2nd
Can you talk about your run tonight?
“It was a weird night. We weren’t very good either in practice yesterday and my guys worked really, really hard. They were dirty from head to toe, covered in grease and everything else yesterday. We changed everything but the driver and just couldn’t find any speed. We went pretty much back to how we unloaded and fired off today and we were really good. Not really sure what we were fighting there yesterday but our Graceway Pharmaceuticals Toyota was real good today. We struggled a little bit in the pits tonight but thankfully enough this tire was hard enough that we could take two tires there at the end and we held on for second.”
How does it feel to earn your career best finish in this series?
“It feels good. I’ve run in the truck series quite a bit and to not get any better finishes than this is obviously a little disappointing. To be able to come home second, and that is a career best, I’m proud of that. I’m proud of all my guys and I’m proud of Billy Ballew Motorsports. It seems like we’ve run really well. We’ve run top-five I think six or seven of the last eight or nine races that we’ve run. We’re always up front. We’re always running good. It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy racing when you can race like that. I want to thank Billy Ballew a lot for the opportunity that he’s given me. Man, we’re just so close and if we keep running like this and if we keep putting ourselves in contention to win races and we can see the front eventually it will happen.”
How were your pit stops tonight?
“Our first stop was pretty bad and we just lost so much track position. I knew we had to get it back. I told Doug (George, crew chief) we had to get it back somehow, someway so we took two tires. That was a great call on Doug’s (George, crew chief) part to get us back up there. I just want to thank Graceway Pharmaceuticals for coming back onboard this weekend. Billy Ballew (team owner) is just trying everything he can to get this race truck to the race track every single weekend and Graceway Pharmaceuticals stepped up big for us. I just want to thank them and thank these fans. What an awesome race track and the fans here are just awesome and so enthusiastic.”
Did you think you had a shot to pass Mike Skinner on the final restart?
“No. Obviously the thought crosses your mind. You don’t ever give up on yourself or your race team. So anytime you’re running second with five to go you’d think that you’d like to have a shot to win the race, but man (Mike) Skinner was unbelievable tonight. His truck was really good. It turned really good. He had good forward bite and our truck just wasn’t good enough to do that. If we made it turn good, it would turn too good. And if we snugged it up it wouldn’t turn good enough. We really were on a razorblade tonight as far as trying to get our truck to handle the way we wanted it to. It would just go from loose to tight and we could never get a happy medium.”
T.J. BELL, No. 11 Red Horse Racing Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing
Finishing Position: 7th
TIMOTHY PETERS, No. 17 Strutmasters Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing
Finishing Position: 8th
BRIAN SCOTT, No. 16 Albertsons Toyota Tundra, Xpress Motorsports
Finishing Position: 9th
TAYLER MALSAM, No. 81 PC Miler Navigator Toyota Tundra, Randy Moss Motorsports
Finishing Position: 10th
TERRY COOK, No. 25 Cajun Industries Toyota Tundra, HT Motorsports
Finishing Position: 11th
How was your race tonight?
“After the way we started off the weekend, we’ll take eleventh. We made a lot of gains from where we were during practice yesterday and I actually thought we have a good shot at a top-ten finish here. But we just got really tight whenever we were in traffic. I couldn’t get up behind anyone and get a run on him because we lost the nose and pushed up the track. It was really bad in turns three and four. But it was a good points night for us, we gained points on just about everyone we’re battling in the standings.”
STACY COMPTON, No. 60 SafeAuto Insurance Toyota Tundra, Wyler Racing
Finishing Position: 16th
BRIAN ICKLER, No. 51 Miccosukee Resort & Casino Toyota Tundra, Billy Ballew Motorsports
Finishing Position: 18th
TODD BODINE, No. 30 Lumber Liquidators Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing
Finishing Position: 19th
DAVID STARR, No. 24 Zachry Toyota Tundra, HT Motorsports
Finishing Position: 26th
What happened to take you out of the race?
“I went down into turn one that lap and felt contact in the left rear quarter panel. I tried to catch it but it shot up the track. We made some pretty good contact with the wall and tore the truck up. I’m okay, just a little upset. We’re trying to get up and finish in the top five in the points and the past two weeks have hurt. We’re disappointed but we aren’t going to give up. We’re going to regroup and head to St. Louis and try to win that race and turn our momentum around.”
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