NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

Like a snowball rolling downhill, a good run in racing builds upon itself until, with any luck, it becomes an unstoppable force, getting faster and faster.

At least that’s what Tayler Malsam, driver of the No. 81 ONE|EIGHTY Toyota Tundra for Randy Moss Motorsports in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, hopes. He and his team have been on a heck of a run in the past dozen weeks or so and, with the exception of a couple of those “wrong place, wrong time” moments that are just a part of NCWTS racing, he’s been racking up top 10 after top-10 finish.

“Running good one weekend, it all builds off that.” Malsam says. “The team clicks together and everybody’s happy. Everyone sees we can run up front and they want to keep running up front, so everybody works twice as hard in the shop and I’m giving all I can on the track.”

Heading to Gateway International Raceway this Saturday for race 18 of 25, Malsam is 11th in the overall points and slugging it out with Johnny Sauter for top spot in the Rookie of the Year standings. His best finish is within spitting distance of the top five, a sixth at Michigan, backed up by seventh-place finishes at Milwaukee and O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis.

If Malsam was cocky enough to believe he’d be in this position at the beginning of this year, he certainly has no intention of showing it.

“When I first got in, I thought it was going to be a struggle all year,” he says. “In the first couple of races, once I saw how fast we were, I started to believe in the team, the team started to believe in me, and we kind of kept feeding off each other. It was pretty good fun after that.”

Malsam is quick to credit the Randy Moss Motorsports team, and especially crew chief Doug Wolcott, for him getting up to speed so quickly. Having a vastly experienced teammate like Mike Skinner to help acclimate Malsam both on and off the track has helped as well.

Considering his rookie status – he had two Truck Series starts in 2008 – Malsam had a stout start to the season. But a handful of races in, he really hit his stride.

“I’m getting more comfortable with all the drivers and how the trucks react to the air and downforce,” he explains. “I’m figuring it out more and more. Doug’s getting more familiar with how I drive the truck, and I’m getting more familiar with how he sets it up. We went to a couple of tracks that I’ve been to before, which I think helped.”

Malsam brings a wealth of dirt track experience with him, in everything from midgets to winged sprint cars. “It doesn’t help with the big heavy feeling you get when you’re in a stock car, but it definitely helps coming from dirt to asphalt because you have a lot of throttle control and car control. I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve succeeded so fast in this series.”

If there’s one area he’s not yet quite comfortable, it’s the off-track obligations that come from racing in a high-profile NASCAR series. It’s another area where teammate Skinner has been of assistance, he says.

“He’s helped me off track with finding people, meeting sponsors and teaching me what to say. [The sponsor obligations] are harder than I thought they would be. I have a hard time in front of cameras. But every day I try to get better.”

If he keeps running like he has, he better get used to being in front of the camera. There are going to be plenty pointing his direction the way things are going.