Keven Wood is looking forward to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the no. 21 Wood Brothers Racing U. S. Air Force Ford F-150. After coming off his career best and top-15 finish at Gateway International Raceway, he is looking to take what was learned and work toward something even better in the Camping World RV Rental 200 on Saturday, September 13th.

Keven Wood on New Hampshire Motor Speedway
"I'm really looking forward to going to New Hampshire after finishing in the top 15, Gateway is a unique track itself. The banking in turns three and four will be similar to NHMS, but NHMS is a little bit more symmetrical than Gateway. It's just going to be finding the line and finding my points, and then working off of that. I think that we can take a lot of what we did to the truck throughout the race at Gateway to Loudon, but once again, it's going to be a fresh start on another new track for me."

What is the most valuable experience you learned at Gateway that you can take to New Hampshire?  "Running two weeks in a row will help; just being patient during the race and not giving up on it will also help. At Gateway, we stayed on top of it and worked on the race truck and worked on it some more. We got it to where I could get it going and actually race, and then came home with a top 15. I think building off two weeks in a row and being patient are probably the biggest assets. We're using the same truck, the guys came back to the shop and fixed up what little body damage we had, turned it around and we're ready to go to Loudon with it."

What are your expectations for practice and qualifying?  "Friday is all practice, so we'll just work on getting it all dialed in to where we have a good truck to race. I'm never really that concerned with qualifying. Last week we qualified 16th and fell back to 25th pretty quick. You always want to up front because you have a better chance of avoiding trouble and a lot of it was right around me at Gateway. We're just looking for a good truck that's balanced and ready to race. That's what I'm focused on."

Tech Talk with Crew Chief John Monsam
What is the key to New Hampshire Motor Speedway?  "You've got to be able to turn in the middle and get back to the gas. The straight-aways are really long and the turns are really tight. I've had a lot of success there, I love the place, it's going home for me and I'm really looking forward to going. Over the years, I've had really good cars in every series. I'm really looking forward to this weekend."

What will your strategy be?  "Strategy is to get in early and pit once. Taking two tires is not going to be out of the question. There is going to be a lot of strategy this weekend. It's going to be on when you pit, how far you can go on fuel and how much wear you have on your tires, it's not a long race and Goodyear has a good tire."

Since it's Keven's first time NHMS, what's your strategy for getting him up to speed?  "I talk with Keven about the race tracks; he watches the tapes of previous races. When he gets to the race track I try to encourage him to talk to the other drivers. Maybe get one to take him around in the pace car. He goes out there and usually follows one of the better veterans. Rick Crawford has been extremely helpful in showing Keven the line. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. We may not be teammates in the same building but we're definitely Ford teammates."

Was there anything that you can bring to New Hampshire from Gateway?  "I think we made some gains as far as what we learned at Gateway to make the truck turn there. We also got Keven comfortable in the truck. We started tight then freed him up and that's going to be our method from here on out. It's the safest, smartest best way to go about it. I'll start him off tight, then the faster he goes, the tighter the truck gets, I will continue to free it up, then he will continue to go faster."

"Generally, when working with a rookie, starting on the other side of the coin spooks them sometimes and they lose confidence. You then have to work on gaining that confidence back for the rest of the weekend. Keven did a great job this past weekend, because he raced real hard with a lot of good people. We had a truck that could finish in between 10th and 20th ; to finish 15th was a good day. We're just looking to build on that finish this weekend in New Hampshire."