Camping World Truck Series driver says track can be a 'cruel teacher'
Even after crashing out of his two previous Kansas Speedway starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Spencer Gallagher still sees the intermediate-sized track in the Midwest plains as a favorable venue.
It's a love-hate relationship that could understandably veer toward hate, but for Gallagher, the love side of the spectrum still wins out.
"I've had some ridiculous things happen to me at my career at Kansas, but I still love the place," Gallagher says. "She can be a cruel teacher, but it really is a great race track."
Gallagher and the rest of the Truck Series regulars get their chance to learn more Kansas lessons, shaking off a five-week layoff in Friday night's Toyota Tundra 250 (8:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1), the fourth of 23 races this season for the tailgate tour.
Spins, wrecks, and other heartaches tell only part of the tale of Gallagher's backstory with the 1.5-mile speedway. The 25-year-old Las Vegas native also claims Kansas as the site of his first win in the ARCA stock-car series last season, but also as the home to his truck series debut in 2013.
Though that first Truck race was marked by a dead-last starting spot and a crash-abbreviated 22nd-place finish, it still serves as a reminder for how far Gallagher has come from his partial-schedule beginnings to his full-time role with GMS Racing in the No. 23 Allegiant Travel Chevrolet this season.
"What a disaster that race was," Gallagher said, pointing out a photo on the wall of his race shop that shows him making a pit stop during his debut. "It's funny, if you go back and look at my record at Kansas, I have had some of the dumbest stuff I've every had happen to me in my entire race car driving career happen at Kansas, but I still love the place. By all rights, I really shouldn't be because it hasn't been kind to me all that much. I still love going around it.
"It feels like a whole lifetime ago. That was a different team really with a completely different way of doing things than we are now. We've come so far. We're so much better than the team we were a couple of years ago. I really catch myself thinking and feeling that a lot, that wow, all that stuff feels like a lifetime ago."
Fast forward two years later and Gallagher has reason for optimism in his first full season in a NASCAR national series. Though he notes that the results haven't reflected the team's performance so far, Gallagher still ranks eighth in the truck standings with plenty of racing left -- just three races into a season-long contest.
Gallagher hasn't lacked for motivation, identifying himself as "the goal-setting type." This season's aim is a finish in the top five in the Camping World Truck Series standings, a feat he sees as achievable.
"We have made leaps-and-bounds improvements over the stuff that we were running even last year. It's been nothing short of a revolution for us in the offseason," he says. "So I try to be a goal-oriented person. I find that helps me get things done a lot better. If you have a clear goal in mind, that keeps your mind from wandering and it keep you on focus."
The other factor that's helped him sharpen both his focus and his driving skills has been a newfound interest in dirt-track racing, where he's a self-described "new convert to the gospel" of slinging a late model around clay bullrings as an extracurricular diversion.
Gallagher said he's enamored with the compact time frame of dirt-track racing, which allows him to shoehorn an event into his schedule with relative ease. After Friday night's Truck race, he plans to compete at Friendship Speedway in Elkin, North Carolina, in an effort to fit in more seat time.
Though the Kansas high banks are paved and contain a decent amount of grip, Gallagher said he sees some parallels with dirt-track racing, comparing the two styles of running on the ragged edge. Friday night, he'll see if the hobby translates to success in his full-time ride.
"We're going to get to find that out at Kansas," Gallagher said. "That's going to be the first real test I'm going to have since I started. I totally see what people mean when they say it helps a driver's feel so much because you're so out of control constantly in those things. You have to develop a good 'butt feel,' as it were to just be able to get around the race track."
In just 15 career Truck Series races, Gallagher has a best finish of third place, secured last fall in a mad scramble of a finish at Talladega Superspeedway. This season, he's still in search of his first top-10 run, but he's emphasized making the focus about his team's fortunes and not his personal aspirations.
"I kind of come secondary. If I'm having a great day, wonderful, but I want to make sure GMS Racing's having a great day," Gallagher said. "... Week in, week out, we've taken cars to the race track that have had great speed with them, and that's the important bit. If we can keep that consistency going through the rest of the season, good things happen, man. Good things are all about consistency, and that's what's important. That's what I like about it."