HAMPTON, Georgia — For most people, taking two or three weeks off from work is a vacation. For Northwest native Tayler Malsam and the rest of the drivers in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series, that’s just the way the early-season schedule goes.
“It does kind of stink, but that’s the way it goes the first couple of months,” Malsam said last week from his North Carolina residence. “So we spend time at the shop and work to get ready for the next race. We do have a seven-week straight stretch of races in the middle of summer, though.”
The NASCAR truck series returns to action with the E-Z-GO 200 at 10:30 a.m. (PT) this Saturday from Atlanta Motor Speedway. The series’ second race of the season will be televised on SPEED, with Malsam once again driving the No. 56 Toyota Tundra for Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Part of Malsam’s frustration with being off the track for so long — the season-opener at Daytona was Feb. 12 — is disappointment with the result of the first race of his sophomore season racing in NASCAR. In the truck-series debut of KBM, Malsam and owner-driver Kyle Busch, the defending NASCAR Nationwide Series champion and a Cup series standout, finished laps down to winner Timothy Peters after being collected in accidents. Malsam recovered to cross the line 17th, negating a strong sixth-place qualifying effort, and Busch was 22nd.
“At Daytona we had two really fast trucks, but got caught up in other peoples’ messes,” Malsam said. “That stunk, but we learned a lot.”
The Sammamish, Wash., native worked for the first time with crew chief Dan Stillman and under revised series rules at Daytona, and found both experiences to his liking. Malsam said he and Stillman “have the same personality — real quiet but focused on getting the job done,” and he lauded NASCAR’s decisions to implement double-file restarts after cautions and to reverse last season’s rule calling for separate pit stops for fuel and tires.
“Single pit stops was the best move they could make — it’s so much easier,” Malsam said. “Double-file restarts at Daytona were good but Atlanta will be sweet for that. When we get to Martinsville and shorter tracks, you’ll definitely see more racey action after restarts.”
Malsam, who turned 21 shortly after Daytona, called the 1.54-mile high-banked quad oval at Atlanta one of the “fastest tracks (the series) goes to” with aerodynamics being important. He finished 13th at AMS last season, greatly improving on his 29th-place qualifying effort there.
Atlanta is also a very good track for Busch. He is the defending race winner — overcoming the loss of both second and third gears to edge Todd Bodine and Kevin Harvick in 2009 — and has won four of his five truck series starts at Atlanta.
“He’s pretty much figured out everyplace in NASCAR and he’s good wherever he goes,” Malsam laughed when asked what makes his team owner so good at AMS. “But he’s won about every time he’s been there, so I’m pretty fortunate to work with him there.”
After Atlanta, the series will again take a three-week break before returning to action on March 27 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. For Malsam that means more time at the shop learning, more time in the gym working out with his newly-hired personal trainer — “I’m doing everything I can as a driver off the track to do the best on the track,” he said — and more simulated racing on his game system.
So even if things go well for Malsam and KBM in Atlanta, there won’t be much of a vacation after.
