Before the Chevrolet Silverado 250, I spoke with Joey Coulter about his thoughts on the weekend so far, his season and more.
What are your thoughts so far on the weekend?
I’m having a blast, really glad to be here, having a good time. Looking for a bit of speed. We practiced good during the weekend; just didn’t get the qualifying run we were hoping for. Made a few changes and I think our Monster Energy Tundra is going to be really good today.
What are your expectations for the race?
I’m not real sure. I know we’ve all been running around in practice all by ourselves, not racing around each other so we’re all going to have to figure out how to pass, run side-by-side real quick. That’s probably going to take a few laps to get everybody sorted out. I think once the race gets going, there’s going to be quite a bit of passing, definitely lot of action.
What’s the toughest part of the course?
The back half of turn two, turn three and the approach to five. That section back there, we’re carrying a lot of speed into turn five and then using a lot of brakes to slow down. It’s a pretty technical part of the track and it leads on to that long backstretch. Really looking forward to getting through there good.
What are your thoughts on your season so far?
A lot of bad luck. We’ve had a lot of speed. We’ve been pretty happy with how our Tundra has been running, just haven’t had the luck to go along with it. A lot of blown tires, just things that you get into those situations where you feel you can’t do anything right. The bright side is we have fast trucks when we don’t have bad luck.
What has it been like having Kyle Busch as a truck owner?
Pretty awesome. A lot of information for sure is available. He’s one of those drivers that can diagnose anything, really pays attention to detail. For a younger driver to be able to ask him what such and such feels like, and his answers right on the money helps makes things right pretty quick.
Your thoughts on the diversity of the Truck Series schedule this year….
I love it. When I was racing in the ARCA Series, one of my favourite parts was running all those different race tracks within a month basically. So when I heard where the trucks were going to race this weekend with dirt and road courses, I was pretty excited about it. I like having it mix-up and really adds another level of challenge to the drivers and show people what kind of drivers they are, whether they’re just short track drivers or have their hands on the whole spectrum.
The Heat format was used for qualifying at Eldora. Would you be open to do that at other races this year?
I don’t know. It’s hard to say because the dirt track changes so much faster than the pavement does. So I’m not real sure. I don’t think it’d hurt to try it once or twice, but I’m not sure that it’d make much of a difference. Also with Eldora being a one-off, lot of trucks that aren’t locked in trying to make the race, less trucks running in the field there. A place like Martinsville, it’s more of your full time guys with a few extra trucks. I don’t know but it’s something that it wouldn’t hurt to try.
