NASCAR Trucks: Joe Ruttman Set for Nazareth Fast Track

15 July 1999

* Joe Ruttman and the Dana team come into this week's race at Nazareth riding on cloud nine after a season best fourth place finish at Nashville Speedway USA.

"This is what this team needed to get up for the second half of the year," said Andy Dunlap, General Manager of Bobby Hamilton Racing. "We have been really good all year but every time we thought we were going to get a good run something would go wrong. Now the guys know they can run up front and they want to do it every week."

The other reason the team is pumped up is they know that their driver has two top 5 finishes and has never finished worse than seventh in the three years the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has been racing at Nazareth Speedway.

* Joe Ruttman, driver of the #18 Dana Dodge is one of two drivers that will compete in the Napa Autocare 200 that has completed every lap raced at Nazareth Speedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The other driver is Bryan Reffner.

* Joe Ruttman and the Dana team both made big gains in terms of points after last week's fourth place finish in Nashville. Ruttman moved up two positions to 24th in the driver standings and the team moved up one in the team standings. But more importantly the team jumped from 160 out of 10th place to 120 points out.

Ruttman stood 690 points out of the top 20 in driver points when he joined Bobby Hamilton Racing. Now, after five races with the team, he has moved to only 440 points out of the top 20.

* Joe Ruttman and the Dana team have qualified in the top 10 for the last three races (Watkins Glen 6th, Milwaukee 6th, and Nashville 9th).

Ruttman's Quotes for Nazareth Speedway

"This track is fun. It's not easy to drive but it's not hard either. It's just unique. It's hard to explain what makes the track so tough. I guess I would say the thing you have to do to be fast here is just be smooth."

"The team will probably be pretty fired up after the run we had last week, but I don't even think about it. I don't have any of the trophies I've won out and I try not to live in the past. The best way to describe it is that you are only as good as the last race you ran. That's how I have to look at it so I can keep on top of my game."

Editors Note: For hundreds of hot racing photos and racing art, be sure to visit The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.