Double Duty in Martinsville...

10/19/2008

Speed Makes Cup Debut

+ TWO TOP 10’s AT MARTINSVILLE

Scott Speed methodically worked from back to front to finish seventh in Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

First, he started 32nd. Fifty laps later he was 26th. At halfway he was 18th. At the three-quarter pole he was 16th until finally he picked up a few cheap positions when other competitors ran dry in closing laps to earn his second top-10 finish in two truck starts at NASCAR’s shortest track.

Speed finished 10th in his truck debut at Martinsville in March. He has one win, three top fives and six top 10s in 12 NCTS starts this season.

Consider this:

Speed is 22nd in the truck standings with 1,089 points. He’s started 12 races; the regulars 21. Speed’s average finish is 14.1. A 14th-place finish earns 121 points. If Speed had maintained that average over the nine races he’s missed, he’d have 2,603 points. That’d place him 10th in points entering the final four races — all of which he’ll run in Bill Davis Racing’s No. 22 Red Bull Toyota.

+ FREE QUOTE

Scott Speed: “Certainly when you start last it’s not easy to finish well here at Martinsville, especially in such a short race because inevitably we were going to go a lap down. Luckily, we made a good call and stayed out and had a quick caution afterward — we were able to stay ahead of the 33 (Ron Hornaday) so we got our lap back. Honestly, it was a bit lucky. I think after that it was just trying to stay clean for most of the race. We definitely had a lot left in our truck as opposed to the other guys in front of us. I think out tires were a little bit better. I think I drove a pretty easy race up to the last 20 laps and it paid off.”

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+ ALREADY CHASE MATERIAL

Looks like Scott Speed’s well on his way to the Chase:

Speed finished 30th in his Sprint Cup debut Sunday, learning early on the value of brakes in a Martinsville race. He kept the car off the wall and out of the way despite battling brake issues the entire day, and the No. 84 moved to 34th in the car owner standings. So Speed’s safe in qualifying at Atlanta.

Scott Speed, driver, No. 84:

“After practice we thought we would be able to come through the field. We really struggled today — we had brake issues all day long. This is a really long day when you have 500 laps to complete. The good thing is that we picked up a spot in the points and we completed all 500 laps.”