Toyota NCWTS at Dover: Timothy Peters quotes

TIMOTHY PETERS, No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing

What are your expectations heading into this weekend? “Our expectations are to race the race track -- kind of take a Darlington approach. This place is not really intimidating, but it’s the type that if you try to be over-aggressive you can find yourself in the wall very quickly. It’s a long race, one of the longest races of the year for us. The first half you just kind of race 80 percent and then the second half you kind of get off defense and go to offense. We had a great run in Charlotte to give us some momentum coming into this week and we start three weeks in a row, which is cool for our schedule. Nothing like being at the race track.”

How do you prepare for Dover compared to Charlotte last week? “You go back and do a lot of watching of video tapes -- I consider this track kind of like one of the short tracks that I raced on back in my Late Model days -- Orange County Speedway (Rougemont, N.C.). A lot of folks refer to it like that, but on steroids. It’s very fast and you just have to keep that in your mind. Again, I go back to the first half of the race is where you have to run about 80 percent because things happen so fast and you go back and look at the entry list and we have a lot of rookies here for the first time. You take that into consideration and the second half is the time to go. You have to get on and off pit road -- it’s not uncommon for a green flag stop to happen here. I have to do my job in doing that to keep good track position and the pit crew has to do their job too. It’s a big team effort and with 20 (laps) to go it’s time to turn the wick up and hopefully we’ll be there when the checkered flag falls.”

How does the race team deal with the down time early in the NCWTS season? “After Martinsville we had that month off and we really didn’t have it off to be honest with you. Back at the shop we are racing forward. We have our trucks sitting there ready to go for Texas and for Gateway. The good part about the schedule is we have time and the bad part about the schedule is that we have time and we used that time to prepare our fleet. We’ve raced ahead with our primaries and back-ups for Texas and Gateway. This race kicks off kind of our summer stretch to where we are on three, off one and back on three again. The team is what wins you races and who prepares the best is who ends up coming out on top at Homestead. I put our race team up against any guys in the garage area.”

Toyota Racing