Ricky Carmichael admittedly didn't have the easiest of rookie seasons in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series last year.
Well, Carmichael's days of being a newcomer are over - and it's showing by his performance thus far this season.
After recording just a pair of top-10s in 18 starts as a rookie, Carmichael is a new man in 2010.
Competing for the fledgling Turner Motorsports organization that joined the series full time this year, Carmichael has two top-10s in four starts and is seventh in the standings.
The 30-year-old native of Clearwater, Fla., ran a career-best sixth at Atlanta and has posted only one finish outside the top 15 - a crash-induced 29th in the season opener at Daytona.
All this has come with a team that doesn't boast nearly the resources of the two-time Truck champion Kevin Harvick Inc. outfit for which Carmichael competed before joining Turner late last year.
So what's been the difference in 2010?
"I cannot tell you how much more confident I am this season than I was last season," said Carmichael, a 15-time American Motorcyclist Association champion prior to his move to NASCAR's No. 3 series.
"Several races last year I just didn't feel like I deserved to be out there. This season I know I can race with them."
Despite being widely considered the greatest AMA racer of all time, Carmichael makes no bones about the difficulty of his transition to the Truck series.
He's just glad to finally be finding his way in a completely different brand of motorsports.
"Last year, I spent so much time concentrating on learning the track and what line to run each weekend," said Carmichael, who is 188 points behind series leader Timothy Peters.
"Now I feel like we can actually unload and go after it. Heading to the race track has always been fun for me, but now it really is."
