Successful NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Debut for Moffitt <\/b><\/p>\n
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Grimes, IA \u2013 Brett Moffitt made his debut in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) on Thursday, June 27th, in the No. 13 ThorSport Racing AISIN Toyota Tundra.\u00a0 He brought home a very respectable 14th<\/sup> place finish in the UNOH 225 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, KY, on the notoriously bumpy but fast 1.5 mile asphalt circuit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although Moffitt has done considerable testing of Sprint Cup cars, he does not have comparable seat time in the trucks, and he was not familiar with the 1.5 mile track, so there was a steep learning curve going into this first event.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very grateful for the opportunity I\u2019ve been given by ThorSport Racing and Hattori Racing Enterprises (HRE) to drive the No. 13 AISIN Toyota Tundra this week at Kentucky Speedway,\u201d Moffitt commented.\u00a0 \u201cA mile-and-a-half track will be a new experience for me, but I can\u2019t wait to get behind the wheel and start learning.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moffitt was clocked 18th<\/sup> during the first practice session, with a fast lap of 170.62 mph (31.64 seconds).\u00a0 He communicated to the team that the truck was too tight to be comfortable, and the crew attempted to adjust it before the second practice.\u00a0 Although he picked up the pace to 172.12 mph (31.37 seconds) during the second session, he was shown in 20th<\/sup> place, just over \u00bd second per lap off the fast time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Qualifying was the low point of Moffitt\u2019s debut.\u00a0 Normally considered to be a strong qualifier, Moffitt took to the track, attempting to secure a good starting position for the No. 13 AISIN Toyota, but the truck was what he described as \u201ctight, tight, tight!\u201d\u00a0 Moffitt hit a bump on his first qualifying lap, the truck spun going into turn two, and the back and driver\u2019s side slammed into the wall, causing heavy damage.\u00a0 A dejected Moffitt limped the truck back to the pits, where the team immediately went to work preparing a backup.\u00a0 Moffitt expressed his gratitude to the team for their extraordinary effort on his Twitter account, where he commented that the entire ThorSport Racing team worked to get the backup truck ready in time to go through tech.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moffitt started in 34th<\/sup> position in a field of 36 trucks, but he steadily moved up, thanks to the impressive work done by the team in preparing the backup truck.\u00a0 By lap 7, he was scored in 24th<\/sup> position, and by lap 13, he was riding behind his teammate, Johnny Sauter, in the 23rd<\/sup> position.\u00a0 Moffitt\u2019s first pit stop included fuel and a track bar adjustment, after the team received feedback from the driver that the truck was very loose getting into the corners.\u00a0 The team\u2019s great work picked up several positions on the pit stop, sending Moffitt back out in 20th<\/sup> position for the restart.\u00a0 By lap 55, the rookie was being scored in the 17th<\/sup> position, and he commented to the team that he was learning that, \u201cMomentum is everything here.\u201d\u00a0 Only 15 trucks eventually finished on the lead lap of this 150 lap, 225 mile race.\u00a0 Moffitt finished on the lead lap in the 14th<\/sup> position, behind his teammates, Johnny Sauter and Matt Crafton, who finished 12th<\/sup> and 10th <\/sup>respectively.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe would like to have finished higher than 14th<\/sup>, but I definitely learned a lot tonight.\u201d commented Moffitt.\u00a0 \u201cThese trucks are really aero-dependent, so it is a steep learning curve when you come to a big mile-and-a-half track, because it is all about the air.\u00a0 I definitely learned what not<\/span> to do in qualifying – I got that down, and hopefully it never happens again.\u00a0 Overall, it was a very good experience. We wish we could have ended up better than we were, but all we could do was unload the backup truck and get it as close as we could before the race.\u00a0 My hat is off to the guys.\u00a0 All three of the ThorSport teams came over to help us get it together, so I want to say thanks to all of them for making tonight possible.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moffitt\u2019s next scheduled NCWTS race is the Michigan National Guard 200 at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday, August 17th<\/sup>, when Moffitt will drive for HRE.\u00a0 \u201cI am really looking forward to getting back in the seat at Michigan!\u201d exclaimed Moffitt.\u00a0 \u201cWe will be able to use everything we learned at Kentucky when we get to MIS.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Successful NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Debut for Moffitt \u00a0 Grimes, IA \u2013 Brett Moffitt made his debut in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) on Thursday, June 27th, in the No. 13 ThorSport Racing AISIN Toyota Tundra.\u00a0 He brought home a very respectable 14th place finish in the UNOH 225 at Kentucky Speedway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,14972,15032],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-13413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-touring-series-news","category-trucks-nascar","tag-brett-moffitt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nThorSport Racing fields a team of three trucks in the NCWTS, with the No. 13 being under the leadership of Crew Chief Jeriod Prince.\u00a0 The truck was driven by Todd Bodine in the first seven races of the season, and Bodine had it sitting in 17th<\/sup> in the owners\u2019 points standings, which gave Moffitt a guaranteed spot on the starting grid.<\/p>\n