Halfway Home

Halfway of Saturday night’s AAA Insurance 200 marked the halfway point of the 2011 Camping World Truck Series season.

Cole Whitt finished eighth at Lucas Oil Raceway while throwing around a slew of adjectives to describe the handling of his Turn One Racing No. 60. First it was “tight,” then “killer tight,” then “super tight” and, lastly, on a scale of 1- to-10, it was “10 tight.” But Whitt hung on at the .686-mile short track and, knowing that his truck couldn’t make it on fuel, pitted late for tires and gas.

From there, Whitt charged to eighth, hoping a few of the front-runners would be forced to pit or that the race may enter overtime. It didn’t, and the strategy of cycling to the front just missed.

“It’s a little frustrating,” Whitt said. “We couldn’t quite get through the field the way we needed to and were fighting the truck a little bit — tight in the center, tight off. It took a little while to get used to it. Once we got the truck handling a little better, we were definitely faster but the pit cycles just never worked out. We knew we couldn’t make it to the end and came in and got our tires, made up a lot of time. I think we would’ve been pretty sporty if everything had cycled around. We’ll just take it and move on.”

Red Bull Racing PR