Friday, March 30, 2012
RAM PR
Martinsville Speedway
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
PARKER KLIGERMAN (No. 29 Cooper Standard RAM)
ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE WAY YOUR SEASON STARTED AT DAYTONA? “Absolutely. I think you know that five-week break is a little annoying momentum-wise. Daytona is a race that, in my eyes, was a success because we fought back from a lot of adversity and came out with a good finish, got ourselves a really good point’s day. That’s what matters when you only have 22 races in a season. Going into Martinsville, that five-week break has given our team time to prepare, time to be ready. We’ve been able to test, get our trucks built up for the next few weeks and all those things kind of come together here with a sense of calm, because we’re so prepared and that’s a good thing.”
YOU STARTED BOTH RACES HERE AT MARTINSVILLE LAST YEAR. WHAT’S THE MAIN THING THAT YOU’VE LEARNED? “Well, the first two times we came here we had a lot of adversity. I don’t think anything on my end or the team’s end, it was just bad luck. But we always showed speed and we can fix everything else as long as we have speed. I’m excited to come back here. I like the weather. It’s a little warmer and that could play to our advantage because I like hot, slick racetracks. We’ve got a great Cooper Standard RAM.”
THIS IS A PHYSICALLY DEMANDING RACETRACK. “You’ve got a lot of braking, high braking force. There’s a lot of beating and banging. If it’s a hot day, it can get pretty hot in there because there’s not a lot of airflow. All those things add together, but thankfully the truck races aren’t that long. I don’t think any of that will add up. For us, it’s about trying to predict the nature of the race; this race can either go a bunch of cautions or it can go a lot of green flag. That’s the biggest thing for us to determine. We hope that we have the right truck for both situations.”
HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR TEMPER IN CHECK HERE? “Bigger picture. The way I think about it is I’m here to win a championship. You don’t win championships by losing your cool or doing something on an impulse decision. It’s about making the most educated decision from all the factors that you have at the time. At this place yeah, you can easily lose your cool if you feel like you’re in a position where you’re able to lose some points or you have a chance to win. For us, we’re here to win a championship. We’re going to put ourselves in position to win races, but we’re not going to go out and force it. At the end of the day, hopefully, that works out for us points-wise. If it does, hopefully, we’ll be champions at the end of the year.”
IS THE PIT ROAD HERE THE MOST CHALLENGING ON THE CIRCUIT? “Yes and no. It’s challenging off the space factor, for sure, but you know there are some other pit roads out there that, for whatever reason, they’re trickier because you actually have a lot of speed mixed with maybe a slick surface. But there is definitely an element of lack of space here that just creates a lot of congestion and the possibility of bent fenders.”
