Charlotte: Brian Scott preview

KEEPING MOMENTUM ROLLING IS SCOTT'S GOAL FOR CHARLOTTE

THREE STRAIGHT SOLID FINISHES HELP XPRESS TEAM CLIMB TO 7TH IN NCWTS POINTS RACE

MOORESVILLE, NC (May 11, 2009) -- Momentum is defined as "force or speed of movement." In sports one of the hardest things to capture and harness is the magical power of momentum. For many teams once you get it, it goes up in smoke. For NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competitor Brian Scott and his No. 16 Xpress Motorsports team, the goal is the keep the "ol' mo" rolling as they head into Friday night's North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Coming off two straight top ten finishes at Atlanta and Martinsville and a third place finish at Kansas, the team has found itself 7th in NCWTS points. They hope to climb even higher after Friday night's high profile event in Charlotte.

"I feel like this Xpress Motorsports team is hitting its stride right now," Scott said from the team's shop in Mooresville, NC. "We are climbing out of the hole that we found ourselves in after the California race. That race really put us behind. Right now we have momentum on our side. We had a top-five finish at Kansas and two top-10 finishes in the races preceding that. Hopefully we can continue to improve20and get an even better finish at Charlotte. Really I have to give a lot of the credit to all the guys on this team. From crew chief Jeff Hensley to every single person that works hard to make this a team effort, they just work their guts out to get us as competitive as we can be. That hard work and dedication is paying off."

Crew chief Jeff Hensley has seen the Xpress Motorsports team jell in a short period of time. Put together at the beginning of the year after Bill Davis Racing folded, the team has built a brand new fleet of Toyota Tundras and brought a positive attitude to the race track each week.

"We put this team together fairly quickly at the beginning of the year," Hensley acknowledged. "But really we took the best of two teams when we did it, the best of the Bill Davis racing team and the best of Xpress Motorsports. The best thing that has happened to us is the most recent break in the schedule. That has allowed us to get caught up. Now we are in good shape with our truck fleet. We are in 7th place in the points, less than 150 points out of the lead, and we are coming off of two top 10 finishes and a third place in Kansas. Every race we have run we've been capable of having top ten finishes. We are competitive and we're trying to do something every week to get better. One thing each week to get us better on the racetrack. I couldn't be happier -- obviously we want to win and I won't be satisfied until we do but the whole group we have together here has done a great job. I am pretty pumped up."

This will be Scott's second trip to Lowe's Motor Speedway and he is anxious to wipe the memories of last year's fiasco out of his mind. A mistake by a fellow competitor on lap 7 took the Boise, ID native out of the event. He knows the significance of racing in front of NASCAR's "home" crowd and the prestige of winning at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"Charlotte is definitely a track that everyone looks forward to," Scott says. "It's a unique track that is very fast with a lot of banking. The characteristics of the track change a lot from day to night and from hot to cold. It has a reputation as a somewhat temperamental creature. It's an important race for all of us in this sport. Everyone wants to claim success on their home turf. As a driver you know that everybody is watching and that there is a lot of intense focus on this weekend with both the All-Star event and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. This is really one of our two biggest events, maybe second only to Daytona. It is a very prestigious race. I'm looking forward to it -- it's a very fun track to compete on."

For Hensley getting the truck just right for the conditions is always a crew chief's biggest challenge at Charlotte.

"Without a doubt it is the most sensitive track we go to weather wise," Hensley noted. "Because of the way our schedule is it creates challenges. We practice in the morning, qualify during the heat of the day and race at night. The track really changes a bunch. It has always been my rule of thumb that when you go out in the heat of the day and the truck is not handling well the best thing to do without getting yourself all screwed up is just to stop. In fact I tend to look at how we did in the morning practice to help us for the night time race. It's just a guessing game. The track gains a lot of grip at night. It actually frees up the truck a lot because it gains grip in the front of the truck and makes it free at night."

Chassis for Lowe's Motor Speedway: Xpress Motorsports will bring chassis number 100 to the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It is a brand new Triad Chassis, built in 2008 but never raced until now.

-credit: xm