Sauter looking for another cowboy hat

He won the two races at Texas Motor Speedway for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2012, but Johnny Sauter’s daily reminder of those wins is the main motivating factor to get him back to victory lane in 2014.

“My little boy likes to wear the cowboy hat all the time,” Sauter said.

Sauter’s tied for second in the CWTS points with Matt Crafton and is only one point behind points leader Timothy Peters. Coming into this race, Sauter’s riding the momentum of another top five finish this season. He hopes to have another repeat of 2012, but knows that it will be extremely difficult.

“Anytime you come to a racetrack especially when you’re racing there twice in one season and to be able to sweep both races, it’s hard to do. I know guys have done it before but it’s a pretty big challenge,” Sauter said.

Sauter will be running the same truck he ran earlier this season to a 6th place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Despite running the same truck, Sauter stresses that the style at Texas is quite different than at Charlotte.

“They [Texas and Charlotte] both look like mile and a half racetracks and I’m sure from an aerial view they look a lot alike, but every race track has its own little special quirks. This race track here, the bumps in turns one and two can throw you for a loop. I was just out there in the pace car and you could feel it at 100 mph pretty good, but obviously things are more pronounced when you’re going 180 mph over them,” Sauter said.

The other end of the track is problematic as well.

“The entry to turn 3 is a trouble spot. It’s just not a comfortable corner, the entry into that corner, you feel like you’re in no-man’s land for a little bit there,” Sauter said.

Either way, Sauter has to feel good about his truck, considering that he topped the first practice session with a lap of 177.247 mph. We’ll all find out as the trucks race on Friday night under the lights.