Truck series driver Johnny Sauter re-signs with ThorSport Racing

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Friday, October 23, 2009

Johnny Sauter will return to his ThorSport Racing NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2010.

David Griffin
NASCAR Scene

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MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Johnny Sauter isn’t just coming to Martinsville Speedway this weekend off of his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory, but he’s also arriving with a new contract with ThorSport Racing to return in 2010.

Sauter, who has 76 starts in what is now the Sprint Cup Series and 195 in what is now the Nationwide Series, won his first Truck race in 20 career starts four weeks ago at Las Vegas.

“I’ll take a win over anything any day,” said Sauter, who has three Nationwide wins and is in his first full season in the Truck series. “I’d take five wins a year over a championship. But it’s also good that you know you’re building on and working towards, and you have another year to make it pay off. You can look at it a million different ways, and it’s all good.”

Sauter said team owner Duke Thorson already had the paperwork done to sign him for another year prior to the Vegas race, but winning obviously didn’t hurt.

“He was already geared up [for it], and obviously I’m thankful for that,” Sauter said. “To be able to have another year to try to go win a championship, that’s big.”

Sauter has five consecutive top-five finishes – three fifths, a second and a first – in his last five races. What’s made the difference? Well at least part is new crew chief Joe Shear, whom Sauter has worked with at various times in his career.

“He’s obviously a huge part of the equation,” Sauter said. “One of the biggest things he has done coming in is lean on our teammate [Matt Crafton] as far as setups. I have all the confidence in the world in him, and he believes in me, and it just works.”

The 31-year-old Sauter said it took him a while to get adjusted to the Truck series.

“It’s way different as far as how you approach every race, and it took me a while to figure that out,” Sauter said. “This racing here, with no power and a ton of downforce, you can really run the chassis setup freer. It all goes back to momentum.

“You feel like you’re racing at Daytona every week, especially at mile-and-a-halves. That’s pretty much all it is. You qualify wide open, you race wide open. It’s a little different mindset. Driving a Cup car, you’ve got to use a little bit of brake and drive them, and then you get in a truck, it’s a completely different atmosphere. It’s fun. I kind of like it.”