NASCAR unveils new Camping World Truck Series bodies

As the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams prepare for their season opening NextEra Energy Resources 250 on Friday night, NASCAR used today as an opportunity to unveil the new bodies that will be on the trucks. These bodies have been designed to match their respective showroom counterparts.

NASCAR feels this is a positive news after success in the other two divisions.

“Each manufacturer has designed distinctly different trucks that they can use to promote their showroom models through their involvement with NASCAR racing,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition and racing development. “We have worked closely with all three manufacturers for the past several years, and we’re excited to unveil a new truck body that will make one of NASCAR’s most exciting series even better.”

Pemberton added that the same excitement that the truck series delivers will still be there with close competition due to the results of the extensive research and testing that took place.

“The truck has a new look that fans can relate to with their own truck at home,” said Chad Little, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series managing director. “The competitors have been happy with the new trucks in testing in January and we expect to continue to have some of the best racing in NASCAR for our fans at Daytona.”

For the manufactures, it means a lot to them as Chevrolet’s Dayne Pierantoni says it’s a marriage back and forth.

“Well, we try to learn with all of the racing that we do, whether it’s through the Truck Series, Nationwide or Sprint Cup, and we try to bring some of those technologies, some of the things that we learned in different aspects of the vehicles, we try to take them to the production line,” Pierantoni commented. “We work with our production folks, so we try to come full circle in anything we do in racing in addition to the marketing side on the technical side, as well.”

Pat Dimarco of Ford echoed those sentiments while Toyota’s Paul Doleshall added that it works well for their brand as they’re celebrating their 10th year being involved in the Camping World Truck Series.

“We were able to spin that into coinciding with the 2014 launch of our redesigned Toyota Tundra, which came out very well, looks just like the production truck, which we’re very happy about,” Doleshall said. “We’re very pleased with the collaboration that went into it between some of our groups and teams, TRD, Calty Design in California, Red Horse Racing, KBM, ThorSport, they all came together to put together a great package.”

For car owners, it is important as BKR owner Brad Keselowski says when you’re spending $3 million a year, a simple move like this helps with a connection to their partners.

“We need to show a result on that for our partners, and one of our key partners across the board, whether it’s at Team Penske, Penske Racing or even here with Ford,” Keselowski explained. “We need Ford to be able to have a truck that you can look at from the grandstands or watch on TV and say, you know, that looks like my brand new Ford F150.  So moments like this where I think you really see that stand out.  You really see how much this looks like the brand new Ford F150.  That’s important for the series and helps us keep the series healthy for a long time.”

BKR driver Ryan Blaney added that, “as far as driving them-wise, I think they drive great.  I think you’re going to see even better racing than we had last year.”

“They handle awesome,” Chevrolet driver Brennan Newberry. “And that test we did, it felt great.  It felt even better than my pull truck, which is pretty cool, but unfortunately we’re going to — we’re going to have a different qualifying way of doing things, and so Robin has implemented that, and so I think it’s going to be fun.”