Mario Gosselin gets boost from sixth-place Talladega finish
Owner/driver Mario Gosselin finished a career-best sixth in last weekend's NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. // Wayne Ebinger, NASCAR Scene
FORT WORTH, Texas – Five days after a career-best finish of sixth place in his last outing in the Camping World Truck Series, owner/driver Mario Gosselin is still beaming.
Prior to Saturday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway, Gosselin hadn’t finished higher than 17th in any of his previous starts in Trucks.
And while he ran among the top 10 much of the day at Talladega, after a spin and getting shuffled back in the draft during the late stages of the race, Gosselin didn’t think he would do much better. But avoiding a late accident and getting in the right spot at the right time in the draft helped the Canadian native come home sixth.
“It’s a tremendous boost,” Gosselin said Thursday prior to practice for the WinStar World Casino 350 at Texas Motor Speedway. “To be able to race my way up to the top-10, top-eight all day and then to get shuffled back and to come back up there, it was just a lot of fun.
“I was having a ball.”
It was one of the best days in NASCAR for Gosselin, who has two starts in the Sprint Cup Series and three Nationwide starts to go along with his 19 Truck starts. He also had a sponsor (tire store mytiremonkey.com) for that race and dressed up his young children in monkey suits for the Halloween-day event.
Gosselin, a 38-year-old well known in the Southeast for his Late Model prowess with two ProCup titles, hopes to run the entire Truck schedule next year.
“We’re going to take what we get, but we’re shooting for a top-10 for sure [here at Texas],” Gosselin said. “We’re looking at doing all the races next year. That’s what our goal is. Do we have that obtained yet and the funding yet? No, but that is what our goal is.”
