Timothy Peters’ Frustrating Race Ends with Damaged Truck in Feud with Teammate

Timothy Peters led six different times for a total of 49 laps during Sunday’s rain delayed Kroger 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway. He looked to have a truck worthy of winning but typical short-track racing cost him a chance at his eighth career victory.

All the frustration culminated after the checkered flag when he exchanged slams with his Red Horse Racing teammate German Quiroga leaving his No. 17 Parts Plus Toyota with heavy damage to front end.

His frustration started to build on lap 138 when he cleanly passed Johnny Sauter for the lead. The next lap Sauter drove into the back of Peters’ truck and moved him up the track and out of the way. Peters fought hard to get back to the low line but couldn’t do so until he was in fifth place.

His truck was strong and with the motivation to catch the truck of Sauter he ended up running him down and again passing him cleanly for the lead on lap 170. Sauter fought back though and took the lead again on lap 174 before Peters again had to make the move to regain the lead from Sauter on lap 178.

After a caution on lap 192 Peters had a new challenger. It was Matt Crafton who would take the lead on lap 209 from Peters. A second green-white-checkered finish gave Peters another attempt to get by Crafton for the win but he was knocked up the track by Darrell Wallace Jr which sent Peters into a battle to salvage a top five finish. He then tangled with his teammate German Quiroga in the No. 77 Toyota and Quiroga also crashed John Wes Townley on the final lap.

After crossing the finish line Peters drove into the back of Quiroga with his frustration at a boiling point. He drove Quiroga up the track toward the wall and Quiroga responded by slamming into the side of Peters’ truck on the backstretch and pulling ahead where Peters again hit the back of the No. 77. Then Quiroga slammed the breaks and Peters creamed into the back of his truck damaging the front of his No. 17 substantially.

“He’s got a lot to learn,” said Peters. “I’ve been in this deal long enough that I need some respect and he’s definitely got a lot to learn. I don’t care if he’s my teammate or not, he’s going to respect me.”

After scoring froze the field when the caution came out for Townley’s crash Peters was scored with a sixth place finish just ahead of Quiroga in seventh.

Peters has raced 164 career Truck Series races including being a full time driver the past five seasons. Quiroga has made 30 career starts with last season being his first full season.

Red Horse Racing is one of the top teams in the Truck Series but like most teams do not have the biggest budget so seeing two trucks get torn up after the race in frustration is even more frustrating. It was a long race of contact that worked against Peters and at the end he wanted to take that typical Martinsville frustration out on someone.

It seemed odd he chose his teammate when he could have easily been as mad at Darrell Wallace Jr or Johnny Sauter. But then again it’s Martinsville and short-track racing can make you do things that you normally would not.

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