Craftsman Truck: Smith's Las Vegas 350

[Knowlesy]

It's JV's debut this weekend so may as well have a truck thread.

Here's the entry list: http://www.nascar.com/races/truck/20...ntry_list.html

[VilleneuveTracy]

Hey, you can watch the race online if you download TVUPlayer. The channel "Wheels" shows Speed events, including CTS races. This is a godsend for those who don't get Speed like me! Go JV!!!!

[VilleneuveTracy]

JV 7th of 30 cars right now in qualifying!!!

[VilleneuveTracy]

Buddy Lazier 20th out of 32 right now. JV still 7th.

[VilleneuveTracy]

Starting grid

1) Kvapil
2) Skinner
3) Green
4) Bodine
5) Darnell
6) McCumbee
7) Villeneuve
8) Compton
9) Smith
10) Bell

Notables

11) Musgrave
15) Hornaday
17) Setzer
20) Lazier
28) Sprague

[VilleneuveTracy]

JV was running okay early in the race but he received damage when the car in front of him spun and that killed his car. With 20 laps left he is 22nd, one lap down. It is a shame his debut was marred by bad luck and it will be a month before he gets to run a real race (Talladega is not real racing ).

[ThePenguin]

I was hoping that JV would do better, but Travis Kvapil is my favorite driver so at least I am happy with the result of the race.

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by VilleneuveTracy

It is a shame his debut was marred by bad luck...

Unfortunate maybe VT, but from the onboard, I think Jacques'll be a little bit more heads-up next time.

That's gonna take some getting used to. Restarts were a nightmare apparently (6 or 8 places?), and there's nothing but room for error. Once he gets a little more comfortable behind the wheel of that thing though, he'll race one of those. Could be just the ticket.

Giddy up.

[muggle not]

OK, what happened was Brian scott who was in front of JV lost a little control and "wiggled" whcih caused him to slow down. JV did not react fast enough and ran into the back of Brian putting him into the wall. As stated by Liftoff, JV probably learned some from the incident and will be more heads up next time.

[VilleneuveTracy]

I agree. He will learn from that--which is what he intended to do by running the race.

Restarts were terrible. He struggled on cold tires but I am sure they will work on that and have JV up to par soon. This is why it is great he is starting in the CTS series and not going straight to cup. He can work out the kinks now, rather than in the bigtime next year.

JV did run well before the damage. He was mediocre early but right at the end of the first run he seemed to get his groove and was running within 0.1 second a lap of the leader. He moved from 17th or 18th to 14th during this period. Then the caution came out, he, as he did all race, lost ground on the restart and then he was moving back up and then the accident happened. As far as pace goes it was a solid debut imo, although the damage did not allow the result to reflect it. The damage caused him to run about 3 seconds a lap slower than the leader right after he received it, although the team was able to slightly improve the truck's handling later on.

JV's comment after the race (from espn):

"I was running high and I ended up getting sideways," Villeneuve said. "You can actually slide those trucks a lot without crashing [into the wall], so that's quite good. I'm surprised because it wasn't a big hit at all, but it did significant damage. I didn't expect so much damage, so that's something to learn."

[gomick]

good effort by jacques to qualify 7th, guess its all just racing experience in these categories that he is lacking...
good win for kvapil, his 4th of the year i think

Points after 19 rounds...

1 Mike Skinner - 3064
2 Ron Hornaday - 3061
3 Travis Kvapil - 2883
4 Todd Bodine - 2750
5 Johnny Benson - 2666

[StuiE]

I caught the 30 or so laps of this just then, good racing there