It’s a “home” race this weekend for Natalie Decker and most of NASCAR as the Gander Outdoors Truck Series take to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 on Friday night May 17th.
“I’m really excited to race at Charlotte on Friday. There seems to be a lot of excitement around this weekend because it’s a home race for everyone.” says Decker, “We tested there a few months ago, and I’ve been working on the simulator to help prepare.”
This will be Decker’s first time racing at CMS in the truck, but she has had test sessions at the track and raced there last year in the ARCA Menards series. In last years event, she started 15th and finished in the same position on the lead lap.
This weekend she will be looking to capture her best finish of the season, which currently sits at 13th from her strong performance back in Vegas, the third race of the season.
Since then Natalie Decker has been to Spain for the W-Series, raced in a Trans-Am at Sebring, suffered a lap one wreck at Bristol in the K&N Pro East series, ran into mechanical fuel issues during the ARCA race at Talladega, had a solid first trip to Dover, and took a slide through the grass last week at Kansas.
This weekend, her goals are simple. Qualify well, and get the best finish of her young NASCAR truck career.
“My goal for the race is to get a good qualifying lap in, finish all the laps in the race and learn as much as possible. My DGR-Crosley team and I are hoping to get our best finish of the season this weekend in Charlotte.”
It will be her 4th race of the season at a mile and a half. Her first one was a learning moment for Decker in Atlanta, with only five green flag passes and spinning out twice as she finished 24th. The second came at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where she found comfortability on making 33 green flag passes on her way to a career-best 13th place finish. That race she spent 48 laps in the top 15, or 35.8% of the total laps run.
Then we look back to last week in Kansas, where the trend of improvement continued on the track, her despite wrecking out on lap 51. Before her incident, she spent 41 laps in the top 15, or 80.4% of her total laps run. All eight of her green flag passes where of cars running in the top 15. Just ran into some back luck that took her out of the race.
Now it’s race four, of the mile-and-a-halfs, and race six of the season. Only time will tell what Friday night brings.
Things will get started for Natalie Decker and her DGR-Crosley team on Friday morning with a 9:05 am first practice. Then at 10:35 am the trucks will take to the track for final practice. Qualifying starts at 4:35 pm and the Decker will rev up her No. 54 N29 Technologies Toyota Tundra just ahead of 8:30 pm for the drop of the green flag in the North Carolina Education 200 on FS1.
Article Written by Adrian Beecher
