07-16-2007 | TruckSeries.com Report
Willie Allen fought his way to a 15th place finish this past Saturday at Kentucky Speedway by overcoming a weekend full of obstacles. On Friday, the ThorSport crew unloaded a brand new Chevy Silverado and began preparations for the running of the 13th NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race of the season. With practice one under his belt, the Rookie of the Year candidate took to the track for the rookie practice session hoping to gain more knowledge of the Kentucky Speedway track. Unfortunately for Allen, the throttle hung on his No. 13 Silverado sending him into the wall. The damage forced the ThorSport team to work relentlessly to prepare the backup truck for final practice and qualifying. Allen was able to post a lap time of 31.854 during qualifying that allowed him to start in the 17th position. At the drop of the green flag on Saturday, Allen battled a loose handling truck as he ran in the 16th position. A caution on Lap 51 allowed Allen to pit for adjustments, four tires, and fuel. However, just nine laps later, Allen was involved in a spin coming out of turn 4. Allen returned to the pits where the crew was forced to use their last set of Goodyear tires. Allen restarted in the back of the field and slowly began to work his way through the competition, running some of his fastest lap times late in the race on old tires. Under the circumstances, Allen was pleased to end the race with a Top 15 finish. "This finish feels good after everything that happened in practice on Friday," said Allen. "We had a pretty good truck for the race. It was a little loose at the start, but we were able to make some adjustments and got it a lot better at the end. We had a few problems during the race. We spun and had to go to the back. It caused us to lose a set of tires and we had to finish the race on old tires, so it felt good to work our way back up to the top 15. I'd like to thank the crew for working very hard this weekend. I'm happy with the results we got after all that happened to us." Allen remains 2nd in the Rookie of the Year standings while moving up one position to 19th in the overall driver standings. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series heads to Indianapolis for the running of the Power Stroke Diesel 200.