Craftsman Truck Series: Bobby Hamilton Dodge Ram Feature

Sunday, Jan. 16, 2005
Daytona International Speedway
Material from 2005 Testing.



BOBBY HAMILTON (No. 4 Bailey's Cigarettes Dodge Ram)

NOTE: The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series scheduled test session at
Daytona International Speedway was rained out Saturday and the trucks
did not get on the track Sunday morning because of rain. Sunday's
afternoon session may also be in jeopardy because of rain.

 

 Also, defending NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Bobby Hamilton
announced Saturday that Bailey's Cigarettes will sponsor two of his
trucks in 2005. The company will sponsor Hamilton's No. 4 Dodge in 12
races, while rookie Timothy Peters will drive the No. 04 Dodge out of
the BHR shop in 11 races with Bailey's as the primary sponsor. Casey
Atwood will drive the No. 04 Bailey's Dodge Ram in three events.

 

"Timothy has been with these guys and won a lot of Late Model races, so
I feel like this is a great opportunity for me," Hamilton said. "I'm
old, and I'm looking for younger guys to carry BHR to the next level.
Casey Atwood will drive the truck for the first three races because of
Timothy's rookie status. Timothy will start in Martinsville."

 

DO YOU HAVE OTHER SPONSORSHIP LINED UP FOR THE 4 TRUCK? "I do, and I've
got an announcement to make before Daytona. I was in a panic. I'm not so
sure that selling it off for X amount of races isn't the way to go. It's
a headache, but I think it's going to be a better deal for me in the
end. It makes you play the musical seat game a little bit. I've got
Daytona pretty much sewed up. I wouldn't be surprised if Square D was on
for 10-12 races. They've still got market areas they need to do some
things in. I might be short two or three races, but we're in good enough
shape now that once I get the ball rolling we're actually better shape
than we were at this time last year."

 

DO YOU HAVE SOME OTHER TRUCKS THIS SEASON? "The 18 truck is run by Chase
Montgomery. Chase's dad foots the bill on that one. Debra Renshaw went
to the 8 truck. Chase has done a great job testing. We've been to
Colorado Springs a bunch of times to test and he's run faster out there
than Chad or I have. We went to Talladega and I drafted with Debra. I
went 197 mph in the draft with her, so if I can just keep her head
screwed on straight we might see something out of that. Everything is
new, but you guys know me. I just take it in stride and go on to the
next step. It's not a big deal. It's still go in to the shop, punch the
security code in to start the alarms. Write the paychecks and pay the
bills, go to the racetrack and race, go home and sleep for four hours
and get up and go at it again."

 

WILL IT BE EVEN HARDER TO REPEAT AS CHAMPION THIS SEASON? "I never
really race for the championship until five or six to go. I think if you
win the most races and have the least DNFs you're the guy at the end. We
know when Toyota comes in and all the other manufacturers stepping up
like they have that it does get tougher. Ricky Craven is coming back and
Roush is hiring younger drivers. It is getting more competitive and
drawing more attention. It's OK for me. I felt like winning the
championship last season was one of the toughest in the truck series. I
have people say all the time, 'I won this with Ron Hornaday in 1996 and
I'm coming to kick your tail.' I say 'buddy, times change. Bring it on.
You'd better eat your Wheaties because you're going to need 'em.' "

 

WITH ALL THE VETERANS COMING BACK TO THE TRUCK SERIES THIS SEASON WILL
IT MAKE IT EVEN MORE INTENSE? "Yes, it will, but Dick Trickle told me
this in 1991. You just look at it as another truck or car. You don't pay
any attention to who's in 'em. That's sort of the way I do it. It's easy
to do that because I'm the guy that owns it too, and I don't have to
answer to a lot of people. I'm just going to go out there and have a lot
of fun. That's the way I did it last year. I raced when I wanted to and
rode when I wanted to. I made the right decisions and we were there at
the end. I think as long as I can drive the wagon like that, and I've
already got one under my belt so I know what not to do. I know how to
lose 'em. I did that the year before. I know how to lose 'em and I know
a little bit how to win 'em even though people like Sprague and Hornaday
have more experience with that. I've always said when you surround
yourself with good people in any business and good product, it usually
works good."

 

ARE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE NOW IN THE TRUCK SERIES? "The year before I
moved to the truck series I won. It wasn't that big of a deal to me. I
wanted to be happy. I was happy in the truck deal as long as I was
running good, but when lake houses and airplanes and things like that
became more important than the latest cylinder head or the latest aero
guy, then I just didn't want to be a part of it. I'm a racer. I don't
care about anything else. They talk about stick and ball stuff all the
time. If it doesn't have slicks and headers on it, I don't mess with it.
I'm very serious about what I do. In order for me to fill that void I
just went back and drove for myself. If it goes where I want it to go in
two or three years I'll have my own Cup deal and somebody else will
drive it, but I won't do it unless you can race the way you're supposed
to race. I wasn't uncomfortable with the situation, but I wasn't going
to let anybody else control my destiny. The only way to do that is to go
do your own deal. It's different when you get out of a Cup car and then
have to come back and drive for somebody else. The people most of them
guys are driving for are Cup owners anyway. I'm in Nashville, Tenn. I
don't ever talk to Richard Childress. I like him. I don't ever talk to
Rick Hendrick. I love him. I don't ever talk to Roush. He's OK. I do my
own deal, and I don't have to answer to any of those guys. I have to
answer to somebody at NASCAR about rules or whatever. We try to stay in
good graces with them. I think we've done a good job at that in the
past. We're very proud at what we do, and we have a blast at it."

 

WHEN YOU HEAR THE TRUCK SERIES CALLED THE SENIOR CIRCUIT AND THE CUP
CIRCUIT CALLED A SERIES FOR THE YOUNG GUYS HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?
"It makes me feel like if it made that person feel good, then that's OK.
All I can tell 'em is strap in. Tony Stewart won it two times in a row
and the last time after the Richmond race he came to me and said that
was the hardest thing he'd ever done for third place. It's tougher. I
invite any of them to come back. Look at Harvick. He won at Bristol and
finished eighth or ninth or whatever. It's just different right now.
Kasey Kahne came in and won two in a row. Robert Pressley won the first
race he ever started at Daytona. It's OK. It's coming to that.
Regardless of how you look at it, if a 47-year-old guy like me is too
old to run Cup, what the hell is the difference if you let 'em go to 60
and they can't even breath anymore? You've still got to have kids come
in and do it. I think we're blessed with a good crop of kids. Everybody
is still looking for another Jeff Gordon. They'll never find it, but
they're looking for it. It's just not out there. I've always said if we
hadn't lost Dale Earnhardt up here in turn three we wouldn't even be
talking about it. He'd be about 54 right now making examples out of 'em
when they're coming in like he did then. It's just a trend making the
sport more colorful, and I'm for it. Whatever makes the sport better I'm
for."

 

DO YOU THINK THE TRUCK SERIES HAS MORE CHARISMA? "I think the truck
series has more charisma. When the truck series was brought on it was a
great idea to bring young drivers in. You know the young drivers who
came in back then very seldom went any further. When the Cup guys
started going back to the truck series all of a sudden it became high
school instead of elementary. When these guys leave the truck series
now, we've seen Roush do it a couple of times, he just takes them
straight out of trucks and skips Busch. He won the championship with one
of those guys last year. When they come out of the trucks now and they
race against me or Hornaday or Skinner or Musgrave, they went to school
for a change instead of just coming in and driving against a lot of
people like them. I don't mean that in a bad way, but the schooling is a
lot harder now."

 

ARE YOU SURPRISED THE WAY THE SERIES HAS GROWN? "We can see with the
tracks we're going to, we've got 16 events with the Cup guys this year,
they're trying to do things that will draw more attention to the series.
It's the pecking order, and I understand that, but we're getting better
and better this year. I look to see more manufacturers coming in. I
don't know who it will be, but I think as Toyota gets more and more
successful I think somebody else will follow suit. The more that
happens, the more popularity it's going to have. You're going to see
some different things this year. The people that came back who thought
it was easy who won all the truck races before and I don't think but one
race was won by all of them, then holy cow. What happens then? It's like
restrictor plate racing or racing at Bristol and tempers flare. We're
going to see the old truck series again and NASCAR is going to be
handing out more fines than they ever have but it's going to make the
popularity of the truck series better."

 

WILL DODGE BE THE TRUCK TO BEAT AGAIN THIS YEAR? "I think the
manufacturers are pretty equal, and I think the best teams win the
races. Toyota and them do a great job, but I don't care who it is or how
much money they've got. You don't take an entity and put it in place
without taking time for all the people to learn how to work together.
You've got to have a good working atmosphere and the more people they
have the longer it takes to go through your good personalities and your
bad personalities. There's some things in this sport that money just
don't buy, and that's the way teams work together. I think the Dodge
teams have very good teams right now. We're certainly not going to win
all the races. We never have, but the other teams will have to work as
hard as they ever have to outrun us, and we'll have to work as hard as
we ever have to stay on top."