Tim Sauter is ready for a good old-fashion beating, banging, grind it out short track race. With only five races remaining in the 2007 season, Sauter sits 16th in the drivers point standings. Short of the goals the Green Light team had prior to the start of the year. “I felt we could finish in the top-12 or maybe even the top-10 in points this year, ” Sauter said. “There has been a lot of adversity and I’m proud of the guys and how hard they work every week. A couple good runs and we can easily move into the top-15. ”
As the season winds down, Sauter knows that there is not much time left to get those good finishes. “We should have a good enough truck this weekend to run in the top-10, we just need to have a clean race, ” explained the Wisconsin driver. “We have had no luck at all and while we’ve run pretty well the last 12-15 races, we just seem to find the strangest ways to miss out at the finish; Flat tires, untimely cautions, a broken track bar, blown motors, air gun failure. Heck, we were contesting for a top-15 spot when we had the battery come loose the last time we were at Martinsville. ”
Sauter has two previous starts at the tight Virginia half-mile, one each in the Busch Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. Both times he qualified in the 14th starting position. “We qualified well here in the spring, but what we need is a good finish. We’ve had good trucks, good runs and struggled to finish the deal. There’s no better place than a short track race to get that top-10 finish we’ve been looking for. ”
Tim finished 29th in the spring race at Martinsville, when a strange series of events overshadowed a strong truck that included the battery being knocked loose following contact with another truck forcing the Lester Buildings Chevy to the garage for repairs by the Green Light team.
• The Kroger 200 will be Tim’s 24th start in the NCTS and 137th career NASCAR start.
• Tim is currently 16th in NCTS driver points.
• Tim is second in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings behind Willie Allen.
• This will be Tim’s second NASCAR start at Martinsville in the NCTS. He also has one start in the Busch Series.
• Tim’s best finish at Martinsville was 19th in July 2006, in the NBS Goodies 250 from the 14th starting position. He also qualified 14th for the spring NCTS race at Martinsville.
• Green Light Racing’s best finish at Martinsville is 4th, April 13, 2002 with Bobby Dotter at the wheel.
• Chris Jones will pilot the #08 Silverado this week at Martinsville.
Tim Sauter’s thoughts on the Martinsville Speedway: “Martinsville is a tough place to pass on and it’s real easy to use up your stuff. Track position will be everything in this short race. We qualified good here in the spring but we had a whole series of things go wrong during the race. We’ve had our best runs on the short tracks this year and the guys have prepped my favorite truck for this weekend. If we can repeat that qualifying run, we should be able to get into position to finish the deal and get Lester Buildings a top-10 finish. ”
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