Brandon Whitt: Las Vegas 350 preview

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Coming off a strong, solid run just a few days ago, Brandon Whitt and his Clean Line Motorsports team plans to pick up where they left off as they head to the fast 1.5-mile Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway this week. Whitt will run this Moen Faucets/McMillin Homes Chevrolet in Saturday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

Whitt turned a lot of heads this past weekend with a 13th-place finish at California Speedway's Truck Series event, a race in which only an ill-timed caution cost him a probable top-10 finish in just his fourth race of the competitive series. With plans for a full season in mind for 2004, the 20-year-old Whitt showed marked poise and maturity in accepting the bad luck at California, and beginning to look towards this weekend's event.

"Yeah, it would have been great to have laid down a top-10 finish at California but things just didn't work out that way. In our hearts, we know we gave it a top-10 effort and with everything we could control, we had a top-10 run," he said. "We can't control when the cautions come out, and one came out at a bad time for us.

"Still, we feel like we have some momentum going for this weekend, and we are going to capitalize on that," he added.

Whitt will run three more Craftsman Truck series races the remainder of this season. Following Las Vegas, he will run the races at Fort Worth, Tex., and Homestead, Fla.

"Everything we are doing this year is geared towards learning and geared towards setting ourselves up for a great 2004," Whitt said. "The more laps I have, whether they are in practice or qualifying or the race, the more I am going to learn as a race car driver. That's all I am really concerned with right now."

Veteran crew chief Jerry Pitts, who has worked with such luminaries as Bill Elliott in the past, said Whitt's maturity is increasing his educational rate.

"Brandon is a natural talent who picks up on the nuances of this sport pretty quickly. He is focused - not just to reach Winston Cup some day, which is his ultimate goal - but focused on doing what it takes to get there," Pitts said. "It doesn't throw him if things don't go exactly right. He knows everything he is doing now helps him in the learning process.

"But don't let him fool you either," Pitts laughed. "You won't find a more competitive driver in any form of motorsports anywhere. He wants to be successful more than anyone, and he is

willing to put in the time and the effort to get there. His natural talent, his ability to learn and his raw desire are going to take him to some great places."

Whitt's next step continues with the start of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career. Following in the footsteps of former California phenoms Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, Whitt now moves to the next level of major league stock car racing. He comes to the trucks from a successful stint in NASCAR's Winston West Series - where he qualified on the outside pole for the California race this Spring - and the NASCAR Southwest Touring Series, where he was the 2002 Rookie of the Year.

"Every time you move, the past doesn't mean quite as much," Whitt said. "Nobody in Trucks cares what I did in Winston West or Southwest Tour, and that's fine. I want to do what it takes to reach success in the Craftsman Truck Series because that is the next step in reaching my ultimate goal.

"I'm fortunate to have a lot of experience behind me throughout our race team, and people who are willing to work with me," he added.

Pitts is a veteran crew chief who worked in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series with Bill Elliott, then moved to lead Eric Norris to the 2002 NASCAR Winston West championship. Marty Gaunt is general manager, coming to the team after a winning stint with Penske Racing.