Race Weekend Central

Tearing Apart the Trucks: Timothy Peters Closes in on 1st Career Win

This weekend, the Camping World Truck Series continues to take a break while getting prepared for their annual mid-week show at Bristol Motor Speedway next Wednesday (Aug. 19). When the trucks take the track, Ron Hornaday Jr. will look to extend his record of consecutive wins to six. One driver who would like to see that streak broken is Timothy Peters.

In mid-June, Peters joined Red Horse Racing after defending champion Johnny Benson was dropped from his No. 1 Toyota due to a lack of sponsorship. While it’s hard to not feel some sort of animosity towards a driver who joined a team right after their star driver was released, it’s not his fault. Peters just happened to be a driver who already had sponsorship backing from Strutmasters.com but really needed better equipment.

See also
What's Vexing Vito: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished - Johnny Benson Ousted From Red Horse Racing

The pairing really was a match made in heaven. RHR and owner Tom DeLoach had the equipment that the 28-year-old driver needed and Peters had the stable sponsorship that DeLoach could never seem to find for Benson. When the season began, Peters drove for Premier Racing, but the team was on a very tight budget and didn’t have much equipment.

Despite starting off the season with two top-10 finishes at Daytona International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway in California, Peters failed to finish inside the top 10 in the following five races he ran for Premier Racing. Since joining RHR, Peters has finished outside the top 10 three times in seven races, but one of those finishes was a 12th at Texas Motor Speedway in his debut with RHR.

In his most recent race at Nashville Superspeedway, the driver of the No. 17 Toyota scored his first career pole and finished fourth. He led 33 laps on the way to tying his best career finish. Now that Peters has joined RHR, he has a much larger team of people to help set up the trucks each week.

Peters seems very happy to have the team to work on his trucks. Prior to joining RHR, Peters and crew chief Chad Kendrick were usually the only ones working on the truck. Now there’s a group of people that have helped to take that load off and allow each of them to focus on improving themselves in their positions.

“Our team before consisted of me and [Chad Kendrick] working on the trucks. Now neither of us is responsible for so many different things so we can both concentrate on our jobs,” Peters said. “I can focus on being a driver and getting better each week.”

But despite the fact that the driver of the No. 17 Strutmasters.com Toyota has the crew to work on his trucks, he doesn’t just sit back and let them do all the heavy lifting. In fact, he joins the team on a regular basis in their work, and crew chief Chad Kendrick has definitely noticed.

“I haven’t worked with very many drivers, but I have never seen one as hands-on as he is,” said Kendrick. “He is here at the shop at 7:00 every morning when the guys get here and he comes all the way from Virginia. He has worked on his own equipment for so long, it’s hard for him to let go and let us take care of it.”

It’s only a matter of time before Peters breaks through and scores his first career CWTS win. Bristol Motor Speedway is the perfect place to make that happen. Brian Scott and Colin Braun have already added CWTS wins to their resumes this season and Peters could be the next.

Did You Know?

  • Benson hopes to visit Bristol Motor Speedway next week? Though he has been at home recuperating from shoulder surgery, the defending Truck Series champion hopes to visit the Bristol race barring any problems that pop up between now and then.
  • Hermie Sadler will be running at Bristol Motor Speedway next weekend? He will pilot the No. 48 with Victory Junction and The Hermie and Elliott Sadler Foundation on the truck fielded by Andy Hillenburg.
  • Billy Ballew Motorsports plans to field a third truck at Bristol Motor Speedway? Nate Monteith will pilot the No. 09 Graceway Pharmaceuticals Toyota with Brad Parrott on the pit box as teammates to Kyle Busch and Aric Almirola.
  • Ryan Newman will return to Kevin Harvick Inc. for the O’Reilly 200 presented by Valvoline? He will pilot the No. 2 Pringles Chevrolet, the same truck he won with last season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Note to Readers: Don’t forget the Camping World Truck Series runs their next race on Wednesday, Aug. 19 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Race coverage will start at 8:00 p.m. ET on SPEED with the CWTS Setup followed by the race at 8:30 ET.

About the author

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share via