Catchfence

Johnny Sauter enters Saturday’s Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway on a tear that has taken him to five consecutive top-5 finishes and a dominant victory at Las Vegas last time out.

Sauter has surged to 5th place in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings, and says he expects the race on Saturday to be more front-running business-as-usual.

“There’s no reason to believe we can’t win the race,” he said. “I’ll be disappointed if we’re not right there at the end, with a strong shot to win it. I love racing at Martinsville. This track will test a driver’s patience in a major way, and you never really know what’s gonna happen. There’s a tendency for drivers to get impatient at Martinsville, and that can get you into trouble in a hurry. It’s a fine line between aggression and impatience.

You have to be aggressive, because track position is so important, but you have to be smart, too. You have to have the whole package to win at Martinsville. Brakes are key as you get into the corners, and your truck has to turn well thru the center of the corner and have strong forward bite. Pit stops take on added importance here, because track position is such a key. Our guys on this No. 13 Fun Sand/Rodney Atkins-Curb Records Chevrolet have just been awesome in the pits, and I expect that to continue this weekend.”

Sauter is plenty familiar with Martinsville. He has numerous starts at the track in Cup, Nationwide and Truck series races. He nabbed a top-5 finish at Martinsville in a Nationwide Series race in ’06.

“We’re always confident coming to Martinsville,” he said. “As we look at Martinsville and the remaining races (five) this season, there’s no reason to think we shouldn’t be challenging for wins at each of the tracks. This team is in a great place right now, as far as putting the pieces together and continuing to find ways to get better. I’m so proud of our guys for their effort, and we saw it pay off with our win at Las Vegas a few weeks ago. That was huge for us, because we’ve been in position for it to happen numerous times this season. Hopefully, we can keep this thing rolling, and make it pay off again on Saturday.”

- ThorSport Racing Press Release