Photo Credit: Tyson Lautenschlager/OnPitRoad,com
Young’s Motorsports announced on Friday that Alex Tagliani would run the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race when the series comes north of the border for Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in August.
Tagliani will race alongside teammates Austin Hill and Max Tullman, driving the No. 12 Chevrolet.
For Tagliani, it’s a homecoming in two ways.
He’s competing for a team he raced for at this track last year and he’ll reunite with a crew chief he’s worked with in the past.
“I’m very excited because I’m going to work with a crew chief I’ve worked with before at [Brad Keselowski Racing], Chad Kendrick. He’s fantastic, he’s good,” Tagliani told OnPitRoad.com after practice at the Pinty’s Grand Prix of Toronto.
When Tagliani raced for Young’s Motorsports in 2017, it wasn’t a race pegged on his schedule at the beginning of the year. The deal to run the Truck race, on the same day he raced in the Pinty’s Series, came together late.
“Last year was a last minute deal and I don’t think we brought the truck we should have brought to race and be competitive,” he said. “We started 11th, we were running sixth. I think we had a potential top-five finish, but we had a fuel pickup issue and came in the pits, lost a lap. It was really painful.
“The team has the potential to bring a really good piece and that’s why [I’m] so excited about it. They’re putting it together now and we’re going for the win. We’ve been close there many times.”
And when he says he’s been close, he’s not kidding.
In 2014, an issue late in the race relegated Tagliani to a 16th-place finish after starting on pole. Meanwhile, in 2015, he was leading late until a broken part with two laps to go took him out of the lead and down to a fifth-place finish.
Sponsorship details have yet to be announced for the race, but Tagliani said the partners working with him will be “a pretty big gig for Canadian fans to engage with our truck.”
“With all the Canadian fans there, having a NASCAR U.S. series coming down to our country, having a Canadian win would be pretty big,” he said.
