Thursday, November 15, 2018

Brett Moffitt - NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship 4

Brett Moffitt - NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship 4
Brett Moffitt took the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series by storm in 2018, winning five times (Atlanta, Iowa, Chicagoland, Michigan, Phoenix) with 12 top-five finishes in his first fulltime season in the series. Plus, this is Moffitt’s first Playoff run and the first for Hattori Racing Enterprises.

Moffitt, who has experience in all three NASCAR national series, showed the most success of his career this season. In 22 starts, 3,214 of 3,269 laps completed and 210 laps led, he has posted an average start of 12.0 and average finish of 9.3. Moffitt finished every race of the season except for the series opener at Daytona where he crashed on lap 72.

This team has fought through adversity the entire season, sometimes not knowing if they would be able to make it to the racetrack over the weekend due to sponsorship struggles. But they were always able to make the best of it with last lap finishes for the win.

Thus far in the 2018 Playoffs, Moffitt has four top-five finishes and started in the top 10 every race except at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Martinsville, where he came from the back to finish second and third, respectively. 

Playoff Recap

Brett Moffitt opened the 2018 Playoffs with a third-place finish at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, his first visit to the track. He went onto Las Vegas and finished just outside of the top 10 in 11th and then finished the Round of at Talladega Superspeedway starting eighth and finishing in 17th. Moffitt’s Playoff luck started to change in the Round of 6, he second at Martinsville and then third at Texas Motor Speedway. But put the exclamation point on his run to the Championship 4 with a big win last weekend at ISM Raceway to click his ticket to the final four in Miami.

Homestead-Miami Outlook

Brett Moffitt has never run a race in his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career at Homestead-Miami Speedway. However, looking back on Moffitt’s past performances at 1.5-mile tracks this year he has wins at Chicagoland and Atlanta. Moffitt has run at Homestead in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series back in 2014, finishing 36th and in 2015 finished 31st.

Crew Chief Corner

Scott Zipadelli, crew chief for the No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota with driver Brett Moffitt has seen a lot of success in his career as a crew chief. But, most of that success has come with Moffitt as his driver. He has experience in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Series. In total Zipadelli has nine NASCAR national series wins six in the Truck Series and three in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Zipadelli spent nine years as a crew chief in the NASCAR Xfinity Series where he had 267 starts, three wins (2010, 2014), 34 top fives, 89 top 10s and two poles. He was crew chief for NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Justin Allgaier in 2013 and for Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Larson in 2014, when he got two wins. During his short time in the K&N Pro Series East for one race in 2017 and one race in 2018, he got his first win with Moffitt at Watkins Glen International in August.

Zipadelli’s four years as a crew chief in the Truck Series he has led drivers in 90 starts, six wins, 29 top fives, 43 top 10s, three poles and 336 laps led. He has been to Homestead three times in his career and has two top fives and two top 10s.

Team Talk

Hattori Racing Enterprises started their NASCAR Camping World Truck Series program in 2013, with one race run by Brett Moffitt. In 2015, Ross Kenseth ran for Hattori for one race and in 2016, Jesse Little ran two races for the team. In 2016 and 2017, Ryan Truex ran 38 total races for Hattori Racing and had nine top-five finishes, 17 top 10s and two poles. The team finished a career best ninth in the Truck Series championship standings last season. However, 2018 is the first time that the team has been in the Playoffs and in the Championship 4. In total, Hattori Racing has 64 starts in the Truck Series, five wins (all from this season), 21 top fives, 29 top 10s and two poles.

Source: NASCAR.com PR

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