RACE REPORT - BRANDON WHITT

For Brandon Whitt and the #38 Tundra crew, Saturday started off with high hopes of taking one more step towards a Tennessee sweep. Whitt qualified third, his second highest starting spot of the season, and appeared early on to have a truck capable of running up front for the entire evening.

“We were going to be pretty good,” said Whitt. “The truck felt great, we had qualified well, and were looking forward to an awesome run.”

However, before long things took a turn for the worse. After the second caution flag of the evening, Whitt restarted second and appeared poised to take over the top spot. Barreling down into turn one, Whitt immediately felt something wasn’t right on his #38 McMillin Homes/Cure Autism Now Toyota Tundra.

“When I got down into (turn) one on the restart, I knew something wasn’t right,” Whitt explained. “It felt like the rear of the truck wanted to spin out and unfortunately that problem never went away.”

Whitt wrestled the truck all evening and managed to stay on the lead lap for longer than many would have predicted, once the cause of the ill-handling machine was discovered. After the race crew chief Jamie Jones, Whitt, and the rest of the crew discovered the culprit. The track bar had managed to somehow come loose during the early stages of the race and without it firmly in place there was nothing to stabilize the rear of the truck.

Despite the significant disadvantage, Whitt and company managed to salvage a 23rd-place finish.

“The truck just felt like it was going to spin out and became extremely difficult to drive,” Whitt lamented. “It’s a shame really, because we were going to be good. I was definitely hoping to finish better in the Toyota Tundra 200, but we can’t dwell on it. We’re going to Bristol next and that can be a really good race for us. I love the place. If we can stay out of trouble there we should be able to bounce back nicely.”

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will take a weekend off before heading to the World’s Fastest Half Mile, the Bristol Motor Speedway, for Wednesday night’s O’Reilly 200.

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