Following a frustrating weekend at Martinsville Speedway that saw John Wes Townley hover around 20th in practice, qualifying and during Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the paper-clip shaped oval in south Virginia, the 26-year-old Georgia native is eager to head west to Texas Motor Speedway, one of his more-successful venues on the racing circuit.
“I absolutely love the 1.5-mile ovals and I’d put Texas Motor Speedway up there as one of my favorites,” said Townley, who finished third in the summer Truck race at TMS in 2015 and has qualified in the top 10 in three of his last four NCWTS starts at the speedway located in Fort Worth.
“We’ve shown plenty of speed on the intermediate ovals during practice and qualifying. Now, we just have to put together the whole package where we can maintain speed in our Zaxby’s Chevrolet for the duration of the race.”
Though the focus is on the drivers vying to win the inaugural Chase in the Truck Series, Townley still has a goal he and his Athenian Motorsports team hope to achieve this season.
“No disrespect to those guys in our garage racing for the championship, but our plans are to show up in Texas on Thursday for practice and be the team to beat this weekend,” said Townley, who got engaged to long-time girlfriend Laura Bird earlier this week. “This race is in our wheelhouse and we believe we can notch our first win of the season Friday night in Texas.”
Friday night’s Longhorn 350 at TMS is scheduled to go green at 8:49 p.m. and will air live on FS1 and MRN Radio.
Athenian Motorsports PR
