Catchfence

FT. WORTH - Ron Hornaday, Jr., No. 33 VFW Silverado, continued his march to become the first four-time NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion with a solid third-place finish at Texas. He holds a 197 point lead over fellow Team Chevy driver Matt Crafton.

Crafton, who started on the pole for tonight’s race, finished second in the 147-lap/220.5-mile/350K WinStar World Casino 350 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Johnny Sauter, No. 13 Fun Sand/Rio Grand/Curb Records Silverado finished sixth to give Team Chevy three of the top-10 finishers in tonight’s race.

Kyle Busch (Toyota) was the race winner with Todd Bodine (Toyota) and Colin Braun (Ford) completing the top-five finishers.

The next race for the NCWTS will be November 13 at Phoenix International Raceway.

NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES

WINSTAR WORLD CASINO 350

TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE QUOTE

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

No. 88 Menards Chevrolet Silverado

MATT CRAFTON, NO. 88 MENARDS/MCGUIRE-NICHOLAS SILVERADO, FINISHED 2ND:

LOOKED LIKE THE CHEVROLETS WERE NERVOUS ABOUT FUEL AT THE END BUT IT SEEMED YOU GUYS WENT FOR THE WIN, DESCRIBE THOSE LAST FEW LAPS:

“Yeah we were saving fuel, saving fuel and then finally I think it was like 12 to go and they said ‘go get him’ and we actually started running him down there in the end and I think we waited too long to catch him but we might have run out of gas if we had taken off earlier.

“These guys brought an awesome race truck and I can’t think them enough. It was an awesome truck, I mean my gosh I don’t know what we have to do to get one of these wins. Maybe lock Kyle up in his motorhome or something. He was good tonight but I think my Silverado in clean air was probably the best truck and as good as anybody.

“And like I said I can’t thank these guys enough, thank Menards and thank Duke and Rhonda Thorson.”

Ron Hornaday

“It was loose. Kyle (Busch) was no help, lifting me up down the backstretch and got me sideways going in to three. That is the way we race. We’ll take a top-three and come out of here. The VFW Chevrolet was very good tonight. We tried a strategy with tires and we might have done something to these to make them mad in practice. We will figure it out and go on to the next two.

“It was a great run for the VFW Chevrolet. It is not the way we wanted to finish. Kyle lifted me up pretty good down the back straightaway. The bumper is bent in pretty good. It is hard to race somebody that doesn’t make a living at it and doesn’t care about points. It is tough. That made my tires mad in three and four. I don’t think I could hold (Matt) Crafton off, he had a very good truck tonight. We will take what we can get and go on to the next two.

“It was locked on me. It happened twice. Down the back straightaway. I wish you guys would take a picture of the rear bumper cover because it was…not once, twice but three times, I was sideways down the back straightaway. I felt like it was Talladega all over again. Got down in there and he just sucked me around so. Good save, but it is not the day we wanted. Top-three coming out of Texas is pretty good because we usually win or something happens here and we finally came out with a top-three so we will take this Chevrolet and move on to the next two.”

HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT CHAMPIONSHIP WITH TWO RACES TO GO?

“It isn’t a championship; it is just a race right now. We have two more to go and we are just going to race as hard as we can. Racing…we just need to win the next two.”

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

Matt Crafton

MATT CRAFTON, NO. 88 MENARDS/MCGUIRE-NICHOLAS SILVERADO, FINISHED 2ND:

IN THE CLOSING LAPS, DID YOU THINK YOU COULD CATCH HIM (KYLE BUSCH)?

“I thought I could catch him or at least get fairly close to him but I was saving fuel for so long throughout that run, I had been told we were going to be really, really close. So, I mean, with 30 to go, I started part throttling it like Ron (Hornaday) was saying. At the flag stand, we were rolling out right there and run three-quarter throttle down the straightaway and you roll in the corner and run half throttle through the corner and just kind of stabilize in there with Kyle (Busch). Then with like 12 to go, they said see what you can do and chase him down. We made up ground on him without a doubt, I just wish we had a little more fuel and just ran hard the whole run.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD BASICALLY HAD NOTHING TO LOSE AT THIS POINT TRYING TO CHASE DOWN RON FOR THIS CHAMPIONSHIP?

“Yes, the championship is one thing. Definitely it would be great to win the championship. I know we have a lot of points deficit to make up there. All we are looking for right now is wins. That is all we want to do it go out there and would have loved to have won the last three. We came up a little short tonight. I love going to Phoenix. It is probably one of my favorite race tracks we go to. I am from the West Coast. Raced a lot there. We’ll have a really good truck there. Hopefully we will knock us down a win there.”

DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD THE BEST TRUCK OUT THERE?

“I honestly felt like I had the best truck tonight. In clean air, tire for tire, think if that was my truck in front there at the end, I think I could have driven away from Kyle. Really, truthfully, I know I would have driven away from Kyle. I feel that deep down inside that I had the best truck tonight. On the first run it showed how good our truck was. From the time we rolled that thing off the trailer, first lap on the race track, that truck has just been awesome. Credit to the guys not giving up. That truck finished second at Las Vegas to our teammate (Johnny Sauter). They went back to the shop and cut it up and saw some stuff where the No. 13 was better than ours bodywise so we cut our truck up. We finished second at Vegas and brought it here and they improved on it and made it that much better.”

THE LAST FIVE RACES KYLE HAS ENTERED HE HAS WON…

”I am just going to get a key to his motorhome and lock him in it and duct tape the whole thing…I mean something. That is exactly what I told him, I was going to have to lock him up in his motorhome, that is all there is to it. Just take him out of the equation.”

IS IT MORE FRUSTRATING TO FINISH SECOND TO A CUP GUY?

“No. It is just very frustrating to finish second to anybody. Finished second here in June and I said it then, we had probably one of the best trucks here that night and led laps and there at the end of that deal, we came down pit road and we had to put fuel and tires on. With the pit road rule the trucks had to do. We had to put tires on and we had to put fuel in.

“The Toyotas just had to come in and just take tires and not get fuel and we came out seventh because we had to do both of them. We drove back through everybody and ended up finishing second there. We were running the leader down just like we were tonight, same deal. Came up a little bit short then. We are there. Everything just has to line up and you have to have a good night.”

DO YOU GUYS FEEL LIKE YOU ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE WITH THE CHEVROLETS AND THE FUEL MILEAGE?

“He (Ron Hornaday, Jr.) said it best. We pick our manufacturer and I am not complaining because we have plenty of horsepower and I don’t think we would be better. They have always had good fuel mileage and you can’t shame them for that. That is just one of those deals.”

TALK ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS WITH TWO TO GO AND TRYING TO ERASE THAT POINT DEFICIT

“I mean, honestly, I haven’t even looked at the points. All I wanted was to be where Kyle Busch was. And if we broke even at the points at that point……….I mean I wanted to win tonight. That was the main thing we came here for and the next two after this is to win races. Then the points will shake out after that and see what it is from there.

“But we just dug ourselves in a hole. We hit a piece of debris on the back straightaway on that first yellow and the guy wrecked on the back straight. The pace car actually ran right over the bumper and I was following the pace car and it kicked the bumper up and I ran the bumper over and it cut my left rear down on that very first yellow and I knew I hit it hard so we came in on that first yellow and thankfully we did when we did because we had actually had chords hanging out of it where we ran that bumper over. “

RON HORNADAY, JR., NO. 33 VFW SILVERADO, FINISHED 3RD: RON TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE THIRD PLACE RUN TONIGHT AND YOUR 197 POINT ADVANTAGE:

“First of all our thoughts and prayers go out to all the family and victims of the shooting. I have to thank VFW for supporting our truck today but we will take a third. I don’t know what happened on that last set of tires but we got real loose and I am not going to sit here and complain but Kyle bent the rear bumper in real good and raced me real hard and I got sideways down there and that ruined the rest of the night when I got the truck sideways so…….but top three if we keep getting those kind of finishes the next couple races we will be looking good.”

SEEMED LIKE EVERYONE WAS REAL LOOSE OUT THERE TONIGHT. ALSO WAS AN EPISODE OUT THERE WITH THE 12 TRUCK. CAN YOU COMMENT ON THAT?

“I didn’t need to do that. They were running side-by-side and anybody can tell you that you get sideways when you start up the middle and I checked up pretty good but I don’t know. The track really loosened up tonight and I don’t know if it was the way we scuffed our tires or what but the last run was really, extremely free but………….”

WERE YOU RUNNING WIDE OPEN ALL THE WAY AROUND?

“I was before that last set of tires, but it seemed like when you get in clean air that you are pretty good and you can run wide open and you catch the guy if he is running your line and you can get tight up off of two and lose your momentum. In three and four you can run high but in one and two you couldn’t with that bump up there. You could get a good run on them up there but then it jumps the truck loose up there and you’ve got to get out of the throttle.

“We had a tire strategy, but it didn’t work out the way it came down to it so, like I say, we will take third and go on.”

WAS THE BUMP FROM KYLE OKAY, OR DID HE ROUGH YOU UP A LITTLE BIT? WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THAT?

“He can do whatever he wants. The rear bumper is caved in so there is no draft so the back tires are off the ground. Once you break the tires loose, and you are already loose and get down in three and four………..don’t know how I saved it because it just got completely sideways and once you do that and Matt (Crafton) can say that and any driver can say it, but once you piss the tire off and make it mad, its done for the rest of the night. I tried to turn the blowers off and get the truck tight enough but I will take my hat off to Todd (Bodine) because he drove me clean the last ten last ten laps of the race and we come home with a top three. So that is all we can ask for and we have got two more to go and Matt and I will race hard and put on a good show for the fans and one of us will be proud to be the champion of the Camping World Truck Series.”

DO YOU GUYS FEEL LIKE YOU ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE WITH THE CHEVROLETS AND THE FUEL MILEAGE?

“We picked the manufacturer that we want to run and I went to feather it the last thirty laps of the race just to save fuel in the corners and that is what Todd has taught me so……..I don’t know. We can pick another manufacturer if we want to but Chevrolet has been good to us and we have won a lot of races with it and if we would have gone green/white/checkers we would have come in and put tires on and fuel in and see what we had.”

About General Motors:

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