Bobby East (Ronda Greer Photo)

Bobby East, driver of the No. 21 Ford F-150, will return to the site where he made his 2006 Craftsman Truck Series debut at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend. East, who started fifth and finished 23rd in the spring race at AMS, sat out the first two races of this season before being approved by NASCAR for competition. East talks about his rookie season and his expectations for the final four races of the season.

Bobby East No. 21 State Fair Corn Dogs/Edy's Dibs Ford F-150
How would you rate your development as a driver since your first trip to Atlanta in March? "I've really learned a lot on our mile-and-a-half program. When we went to Atlanta earlier this year, we had a fast truck and we had an excellent setup and a good body and an awesome motor, but it was my first mile-and-a-half race and I really didn't know what to do other than hold the throttle down. I took that race and made sure I finished every single lap just to make sure I could get 130 laps of experience on a mile-and-a-half track. Since that time, we've come a long way. The team has come a long way in its mile-and-a-half program, and they've really worked hard with me to get better on the mile-and-a-halfs because that's been one of my biggest struggles this year. Also, my teammate, Marcos Ambrose, got a pretty good handle on the mile-and-a-halfs quite a bit earlier than I did in the season, and he's been able to help me out quite a bit."

How have your expectations entering the races on a weekly basis changed since the beginning of the year? "We're trying to get top-10s. We've had some decent runs here lately; we either haven't been able to finish it or had some kind of problems along the way. We're just making sure we work through everything we can, but when we show up to the track, me and John Monsam (crew chief), our mindset is: what can we do to get a top-10? We're going to take that mindset for the rest of the year."

With this being your first year behind the wheel of a stock car, have your had to reevaluate any of the goals that set in the beginning of the year? "Yes and no. I think my expectations were kind of high going into this year because I got to see at Daytona and California what our trucks were made of and what our teams were made of, and we've got good teams and really good trucks. I might have held myself to a little bit too high of a standard being that this is my first year in a stock car. But, that's all right and that's not necessarily a bad thing. We've had some struggles along the way, but like I said, I just need to thank everybody at Wood Brothers for making sure that they stuck with me and worked real hard with me to get better at the places we did struggle at."

Your teammate, Marcos Ambrose, is also rookie competitor, but he has more racing experience than any of the other rookies in the series. Is it an unfair comparison to rate his development versus that of the other rookies this season? "We all kind of knew about Marcos because of what he did over in Australia was really cool and we all kind of followed it. I really don't know what anybody expects out of rookies. Marcos' experience in stock cars over the years has helped him out quite a bit, but he's done a real good job at doing what he can do to make his team better, and that's a good trait to have, and that's helped me out, too. Me and John Monsam are trying to do the same with our team."

Do you enter the final four races of the season feeling that a victory is an attainable goal? "I think if you can get to where you can put yourself in position somewhat consistently, you can get a win any weekend because you never know what's going to happen in the Truck Series. For example, Nashville this year, these truck races go down to the last lap and you never know what's going to happen, so if you can get yourself in third or fourth spot, even if you aren't necessarily the dominant one or the fastest truck all weekend, you can still by luck come away with a victory. That's what I want, to be able to put myself in the position where I'm in the top 10 week in and week out and see if we can't turn our luck around here ourselves."