Peters aims to be first back-to-back winner

This time, he has momentum as well, thanks to last weekend’s thunderous NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory at Talladega Superspeedway, his first win of the season and an important cog to keeping his faint championship hopes alive. Peters jumped two spots to fifth place in the standings and enters Saturday’s Kroger 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1) with a 77-point deficit to series leader and defending champion Matt Crafton.

No Truck Series regular has posted back-to-back victories this season, but Peters said his expectations are high at the .526-mile track.

“Nothing but a win, but we know these wins are hard to come by,” Peters said. “Being able to go to Victory Lane last week (at Talladega) was definitely a big confidence and momentum booster for myself and the whole entire Red Horse Racing team. To have an opportunity to go back-to-back and really feel strong about it coming into Martinsville, we thought that all week. You kind of have to look at Martinsville and Talladega as one in the same — you have to race the race track. If we can see the start-finish line, maybe we’ll have a shot at it.”

Peters has had mixed fortunes at Martinsville since he first became a winner here in Late Model competition in 2005. When he broke through for an emotional first truck series triumph, Martinsville was the site of Peters’ coming-out party. He’s been shut out of the track’s Victory Lane since then, perhaps coming closest last March when he led 49 of 256 laps but wound up sixth and in a post-race fender-bashing contest with Red Horse teammate German Quiroga.

Since that first victory in the fall of 2009, Peters has accumulated seven more including his most recent one at Talladega and a win in the 2010 season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway. But when pressed to pick a favorite, Peters couldn’t make a clear-cut call.

“I look at Talladega, that all eight wins that I have been fortunate to get, they’re all a push. Obviously, the Martinsville win stands out because it’s home for me and I’ve had a lot of success with the Late Model here as well as the truck. That one would definitely be number one on my list, but all of them are equal just because they’re so hard. The competition in this series is so tough. The amount of time that you are able to spend in the series, you don’t know the longevity so you make the most of it while you can.

“The only thing that I wish I would be able to experience would be having my wife and son in Victory Lane with me. Hopefully we have four races left and one that I know he will be at and she’ll be at will be (Saturday). I hope we can get that and add a ninth win. All of them are just the same — one doesn’t outrank higher than the other one.”

Peters has made the most of a reunion with crew chief Marcus Richmond, whom he has counted as a personal friend since junior high school. Richmond moved over from the Richard Childress Racing operation in the offseason, reforming a driver-crew chief combination that won Late Model championships and had a long history in the truck tour.

Peters said he hasn’t doubted the team’s chemistry or performance, but that Talladega went a long way toward shaking the nagging misfortune around the No. 17 team.

“We always kept in contact and knew that one day we would get back together and it would be the dream team,” Peters said. “Last week was kind of like the bad luck is out the window and you’re able to get on the momentum train like we know we can get on and win races. That’s been the hard part. It isn’t that I’ve given up on him or he’s given up on me, it’s that we’ve had speed every week, but it’s the type of deal up until last week if we didn’t have bad luck it seemed like we’d have no luck. We’re pushing through it and our relationship is good. It’s time to get some more wins and get up in the top three in points.”

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