02-03-2005 | TruckSeries.com Report
Four NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series drivers participated in a Toyota test this week at Talladega Superspeedway, making final preparations for the 2005 series season opener at Daytona later this month. Germain/Arnold Racing teammates Chad Chaffin and Shigeaki Hattori with their No. 30 and No. 9 teams, Clean Line Motorsports driver Brandon Whitt and his No. 38 team and Darrell Waltrip Motorsports driver David Reutimann and his No. 17 team all awaited their time on the 2.66-mile tri-oval this morning in hopes of finding even the tiniest fractions of speed to give them an edge in the first race of the season Feb. 18. Chaffin, Hattori and Whitt shared their thoughts on Talladega Superspeedway as well as the season ahead of them: Chad Chaffin, Germain/Arnold driver for the No. 30 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team: "Talladega is the only thing we can come close to preparing off of for Daytona. We've already tested at Daytona with our truck and we did a lot of drafting down there. So here, I think we are going to concentrate half the time on just single truck runs to try to get a little speed out of the truck. I am sure we will do a little bit of drafting with the other Toyotas here just to make sure that what we do in the single truck runs doesn't hurt what it does in traffic. A lot of times it's a tradeoff - the things that make it go extremely fast will hurt it in a racing situation. So we are just going to try to get a good balance on a good, fast truck and a good driving truck." "I am just really excited. I think Dodge was good to me and Bobby Hamilton Racing was very good to me. Bobby Hamilton is a really close friend of mine. But this, in my mind, is my best situation ever. I am really tickled to be with Toyota. The resources and development that go into their racing program is unbelievable. This is the best situation for me or anybody to be in. I feel it's a real privilege to be a part of this team. Bob and Steve Germain and Don Arnold - my owners - are great guys. This team won races last year, so I think I am with a championship-winning team, and if we can get the job done, I think we are in the hunt for it already." "Talladega is a real neat track. I really like it. The racing here is so wide that it's really just how imaginative the competitors are. You can go three-wide, four-wide; you use this whole place in a race. You use every inch of real estate. When we are out here by ourselves, it is so big and wide we don't really use the whole facility. But if you like speed and you like drafting, this is the place. It is the cream of the crop when it comes to that." Shigeaki Hattori, driver for the No. 9 Germain/Arnold NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Team: "I came here before for a Toyota test, but I didn't drive. I just watched the testing. It is huge. It is amazing. I came from the IRL and CART, and drove in the Indy 500, but this is just totally different. I had a good run in IRL at Texas with the banking there, but here there is more, of course. It is a new experience, but that is nice for me." "It is pretty difficult to say (how the adjustment from open wheel racing to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will be). I have never raced these yet, but I have done a lot of testing with the team. The biggest difference is in the weight. This truck has more weight, but I am getting used to it and the Toyota engine has good power. The truck is handling pretty well and I am pretty happy with it." Brandon Whitt, Clean Line Motorsports Driver for the No. 38 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Team: "Talladega is such a nice place and it is a real good place to test for Daytona. We came here two or three times to get ready for Daytona last year and it was a great tool, aero-wise. It is a great place to come and try a lot of stuff. We just switched to Toyota this year and so we went to Daytona with pretty much a brand new truck a couple of weeks ago. We were really happy with how the test went. We had to make some small adjustments and we have some stuff we want to try here. We're going to do some fine tuning. The truck is pretty much ready to go to Daytona; we just came here to see what we've got and make sure we've still got the speed we had there." "I'd love to race here. Obviously moving up to NEXTEL Cup is my main goal, but it would be neat if they had a truck race here. It would be one heck of a race if they did that. Every track has its own story to tell as far as its history goes, but the races that go on here and the history that has been made here are so impressive. Probably the biggest thing about coming here last year for the first time was to see where the Allisons originated from."
"In my dreams, it was to be in the Indy 500, and NASCAR. I have driven in the U.S. for 10 years, and I have driven in the Indy 500 a couple of times. The next step for me was NASCAR."