NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competitor Brain Scott, driver of the No. 16 Albertsons Toyota, is preparing himself for the rigors of battle on one of NASCAR's most hallowed venues - Martinsville Speedway. Scott is coming off his first top ten finish of the season at one of the series' fastest circuits, Atlanta Motor Speedway. He now has to shift gears to the Martinsville, VA layout, a diminutive .526 mile oval with extra tight corners and virtually no room for error. As Scott gears up for this Saturday afternoon's Kroger 250 he pretty well knows what to expect in terms of the close quarters and side-by-side racing that Martinsville is famous for.
"It is no secret what type of racing you find at Martinsville" Scott said. "It's a very tight, paperclip shaped, short track where you have to move people to pass them or wait for them to mess up so you can get position on them. It's very important to qualify well there because track position is so important. You also have to have good fuel strategy and you just need to be good in the long run. You also need a little luck at Martinsville in order to be around for the last few laps. It always seems like the last 50 to 75 laps are caution filled."
Scott knows keeping a cool head is of the utmost importance at the Virginia short track."" With only 12 degrees of banking to hold the trucks in the turns, it is not uncommon for the competitors to rely on each other to gain traction. With track position at a premium you tend to get a lot of traditional "beatin' and bangin'."
"Someone is beating on your bumper every lap," Scott says. "They are trying to move you or get in front of you or just let you know they are there. It has a tendency to really wear on you. It can really test your composure or let your temper get the best of you. The number one thing for a driver is to keep your composure, to keep a cool head and remember the big picture. You need to have a calm crew chief and a calm and steady spotter. You can't let someone else mess with your head because it is a chess match. The smartest competitors in those situations will be the ones to survive. Martinsville is a place where you want to make sure that the driver's air conditioning unit is working really well because it will make you angry in a heartbeat."
Scott has three previous starts at Martinsville. He finished 15th there in his first ever NCWTS short track start in the fall of 2007, he qualified 4th for the spring race in 2008 and finished 14th in last fall's race. As with most any short track Scott feels like survival is a key.
"Survival is important at every racetrack but it's even more pronounced at Martinsville." Scott said. "It's a little more difficult to survive there, you have a higher probability of getting swept up in somebody else's catastrophe. I'm excited to go to Martinsville because we have qualified well there and we have run really well there during certain points in every race. It's a great track for me, it's a flat racetrack and I usually run well at those type facilities. I am looking forward to bringing the new short track chassis we have been working on. It has a lot of the latest and greatest geometry and knowledge that Triad Racing Technologies and Toyota have been able to assemble since Toyota joined the truck series several years ago - all that has been incorporated into this new chassis."
The Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway is slated for Saturday March 28th and will be telecast live on FOX at 2:00pm ET. It will also be broadcast live via radio worldwide on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and on SIRIUS Satellite Radio NASCAR channel 128.
Chassis for Martinsville: Xpress Motorsports will utilize a brand new chassis, Triad Racing Technology unit number 133. The truck has seen the racetrack only one previous time, at a test at the short track in Rockingham, NC on March 19th.
