Fresh off a week away from the track celebrating the Fourth of July, Natalie Decker is back at it. This week she takes her No. 54 N29 Technologies Toyota Tundra to Kentucky Motor Speedway for some Thursday night racing action for the DGR-Crosley team.
“It was good, we just celebrated fourth of July week, Derek and I, with some of the DGR crew.” said Decker of her off week,” We went to GoPro Motorplex, and we went to karting!”
She’s all back to business now, entering Thursday evenings event having had her 2nd best finish of the season in the previous race back at Chicagoland, her second Top 15 in 2019. She will look to ride the momentum and tame the track where she raced at, back in 2017 in the ARCA Series. In that race, she started 15th and finished 12th in the 29 car field. It was the first mile-and-a-half that Decker ever raced at.
“That was the first mile-and-a-half I ever raced at in the ARCA car. So, I’m really excited to go back!”, say’s Decker. “It’s definitely going to help a lot. This is a totally different mile-and-a-half, you really want to run right on the bottom, that’s really the only grove there. So, that’s going to be a little different.”
As she continues to grow and improve, Decker is eager to continue her progression. She gets another full day of action, which she has mentioned before is her preference over having action broken up over two or more days.
She will start Thursday morning off with a 9:35 am practice, followed by a 2nd and final practice session at 11:05 am. Then after media sessions and fan interactions, she will get behind the wheel for qualifying at 4:05 pm. Then it’ll be pedal to the metal for the 22-year-old racer as she takes the green flag for the start of the Buckle Up In Your Truck 225 at Kentucky Motor Speedway just after 7:30 pm on FS1.
Another top 15 finish for Decker would make her only the second female driver ever to have three top 15 finishes in a Gander Outdoor Truck Series season. She would also be the first to do so since 1998 when Tami Jo Kirk tallied three Top 15’s. Kirk is currently the only female driver to score three top 15’s in the series in one season, having done it twice, with the other time coming in 1997, where she scored seven top 15’s.
Written by Adrian Beecher
Photo Credited to Max Siker/ The SkyBoat
