NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
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TRUCKS: Peters Comes Home A Winner
Timothy Peters won his first NCWTS race at Martinsville last year...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 20, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Timothy Peters considers Martinsville his home track. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
There is no place like home.

And no one knows that better than Red Horse Racing’s Timothy Peters, who a year ago won his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race in front of his family and friends at Martinsville Speedway in southern Virginia.

Peters is a native of Providence, N.C., a stone’s throw from Martinsville across the Virginia-North Carolina border. Last year, Peters led 84 of 200 laps in the Kroger 200 to win at Martinsville and accomplish a lifelong dream.

“Winning at Martinsville last year was really special for me because it was close to home and I had a lot of friends and family there,” said Peters. “It’s my home track and to win there was the best moment of my career, so far.”

And he’s looking for more good news this weekend at the 0.526-mile short track. SPEED will televise final NCWTS practice from Martinsville Friday at 1 p.m. ET, followed by qualifying at 6 p.m. ET. SPEED’s live race coverage begins at 12:30 p.m. Saturday with the “NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Setup,” followed by the Kroger 200 at 1 p.m.

So far, the 2010 season has been a good year for Peters, who this weekend will carry sponsorship from cutting products manufacturer Wiss on his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota.

“This whole year has been a success,” said Peters, who began the 2010 campaign with a victory at Daytona and now is ranked fifth in points. “We’ve had our share of blown motors and wrecks but some of that is out of our control. When we can contend for wins and top-five finishes each week, then we can’t consider each weekend anything less than a success. Those struggles just make you more determined and grateful for the good weeks.”

Peters, who finished fourth in the spring Martinsville Truck Series race, tuned up for this week by racing in the Oct. 3rd Virginia Is For Lovers 300 Late Model race at his home track, finishing a decent sixth. Last Friday, Peters and the Red Horse team tested at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Va.

And it’s safe to say Peters is way fired up about trying to back up last year’s Martinsville victory with another one on Saturday.

“My face just lights up when I say the word ‘Martinsville,’” said Peters. “I just hope we can repeat what we did last year. I’ve always loved that place; it just fits my driving style. It was so special to get my first win in front of all the home town friends and family.”

Still, it is a challenging track, something Peters is keenly aware of.

“Martinsville is kind of like Daytona because you never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I think the extra 200 laps from the late model race is really going to help me. We just need to keep the fenders on and be up front at the end and I think we will have a strong shot and getting back to victory lane.”

Crew chief and Martinsville native Jeff Hensley is bullish, too.

“We had a good run in the spring,” said Hensley. “We finished fourth but we know where we got beat and how we got beat and we know how to make it better. We just missed it a little in March but I’m confident we will have what it takes this weekend. With this race being 50 laps shorter than it was in the spring, Timothy will be racing hard every lap. We just need to keep the truck in good shape and be there in the end.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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