KNOW YOU WANTED THE CHAMPIONSHIP, BUT YOU HAD A GREAT SEASON:
“I wanted that championship bad, but gosh darnit, I wanted to win. I can’t thank these guys enough. This truck was good all night and we worked on this thing so much from when it rolled off the trailer. We knew we had a really good race truck going in to tonight. It qualified seventh, I was pretty happy with that, but I knew I had a pretty good race truck. I just wish we would have been able to run four or five laps there at the end instead of just one.”
A GREAT YEAR FOR THORSPORT RACING ALL AROUND:
“Yes, definitely. That says a lot for ThorSport and what they have done. We just keep making stuff better and better. Duke and Rhonda Thorson, they just keep giving us what we need to win races and win a championship. We are proving to them we can.”
TALK ABOUT THAT MOVE YOU MADE ON THE LAST RESTART FOR THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED:
“This thing was really good. I pumped those tires up on that last run. The run before that we got behind, just caught some lapped traffic, just wrong position and the No. 4 (Kevin Harvick) and the No. 17 (Timothy Peters) got out on us so far. We could slowly run them down but they had so much distance on us. Right there, the crew chief made a great call to take four tires right there at the end. I said I would rather go down swinging and we did. I hate it what happened when the No. 5 ran in to me and killed my left front fender on that last deal too. But we got to second. I don’t know how many second places that is this year, but we have had a lot of them. I have got to thank these guys. We had an awesome race truck right here.”
SECOND TONIGHT AND SECOND IN THE STANDINGS, THAT REALLY EXPLAINS THE KIND OF YEAR YOU GUYS HAVE HAD GOOD BUT NEVER QUITE GREAT ENOUGH.
“I would say we were the bridesmaids a lot this year. There’s been plenty of times when we had the best truck and didn’t win races. We got beat on fuel mileage. All I can say is I can’t wait until we have normal pit stops again where we take four tires and fuel at the same time because I know we’ve lost two races because of that pit strategy. All in all a pretty good year. Not ecstatic about it but definitely happy about it because we keep making progress. Duke and Ronda Thorson, Menards, Australian Gold and Chevy and we keep getting better and better and that’s what we’re out here to do. Building new trucks this winter and we’re going to be tough for next year.”
YOU’VE GOT TO CRAWL BEFORE YOU CAN WALK, DID THIS YEAR LAY THE FOUNDATION SO YOU CAN GO OUT AND WIN THAT CHAMPIONSHIP NEXT YEAR?
“Yeah. I mean we know we can. We’ve got a great group of guys. I know I can do it and they know they can do it now. Like you said crawl before you can walk and run, really. We’ve proved that we can do that. We’ve got the consistency and like I said its so tough to win these races these days. We had two taken away from us and could have been a lot different if those weren’t taken away from us but all in all a pretty good year.”
CONGRATULATIONS ON A GREAT SEASON.
“Thank you. Thank all the fans for coming out and supporting us and everything you guys do for us.”
AS FAR AS TONIGHT’S RACE, WAS IT AS MUCH FUN AS IT WAS TO WATCH?
“I love this race track. The last two or three years, it hasn’t been the best to me. But, we brought this truck that has been real good to us all year. They keep working on it and making it better and better. We are building some new stuff for next year and I can promise you we are going to make one heck of a run for that championship.”
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