Reunited and it feels so good. That's the mantra for veteran driver Timothy Peters and crew chief Chad Kendrick heading into Saturday's Alpha Energy Solutions 250 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Martinsville Speedway. The race is the third of the 2017 season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and marks the first time that the Peters-Kendrick pairing has been back at the 0.526-mile track since their win there in 2009.
"It's pretty cool being able to reunite and how things worked out," Peters told NASCAR.com. "Obviously, both of us getting our first win together was a pretty big deal at Martinsville. Since our last time that we won, pretty much we haven't worked together since but remained good friends. Chad's matured as a crew chief. I've matured as a driver and he's had great success at Martinsville. Going back this weekend is a great homecoming."
RELATED: Recap every Martinsville race | Get results from October 2009 raceThat homecoming feeling is aided by two factors: both Peters and Kendrick consider Martinsville to be their home track, and the duo's back story goes back to short track and Late Model circuits all over Virginia. The two raced each other and both admitted they did not like the other at first. "He was THE guy to beat," Kendrick said. "He was the guy when I first started racing against him in the late '90s, I didn't really care for him. We didn't really know each other. We were just competitors and I didn't really like him. It was more of he was THE guy and you wanted to beat that guy."
But a chance meeting at a chassis shop saw the two bond and become friends with Kendrick helping Peters work on his Late Model entry if he wasn't racing. That relationship carried forward when Peters got the call to go to Bobby Hamilton Racing where Kendrick worked as a mechanic for the team. From there, came the crew chief position with Peters in 2009 that started with Premier Racing before the two went to Red Horse Racing in the middle of the season. Opportunities took Kendrick elsewhere over the past seven years, including most recently a four-year stint atop the box at Brad Keselowski Racing. During that time, Kendrick scored five wins atop the box. Meanwhile, Peters has spent that time behind the wheel for Red Horse Racing, tallying an additional nine wins. RELATED: Being a crew chief 'the next best thing' for Kendrick
RACE-WEEKEND RECOLLECTIONS All of which points back to that October weekend in 2009 at Martinsville that put the pair in Victory Lane for the first time in a NASCAR national series.
It began with disappointment when Peters qualified 11th.
"I honestly thought the end of the world was coming because we were buried in traffic," Peters said. "At the time -- and it still is -- really hard to pass (at Martinsville), even if you have a good truck. … Once we got in great track position and found ourselves in the lead, inside 10 to go, it felt like 100 to go because I knew we were close on fuel -- as was everybody else. "When you know that you are close on fuel and you don't want to run out and you're in the lead and on the cusp of your first win, you could just about hear anything that you think could possibly be going wrong."
Kendrick described Peters as being in a panic mode after qualifying and recalled how the newer surface at Martinsville played a role in the race strategy."Back then, the track was a relatively new surface -- three or four years old -- you could almost run the entire race, especially a Truck race, on a set of tires. It almost came down to who was willing to pit first and think they could make it to the end on fuel. I remember I kind of had in my head what lap we could do that on and catch a couple cautions. We pitted somewhere around Lap 35, we pitted one time. We only had one shot at it. We pitted and he was loose. I remember going down on the track bar and putting a round of wedge in it and told him, 'Hey don't rush anything, take care of your tires because everybody else has still got to pit. Then, you are going to have to push it hard.' "About 15 laps or so later, the rest of the lead-lap trucks pitted and we went to about third or fourth and he drove to the lead from there. He held off a lot of good guys. I remember Denny Hamlin was in that race. Harvick was in that race. There were a lot of heavy hitters in that race, (Ron) Hornaday (Jr.) and (Todd) Bodine. All those guys. There were some late cautions there at the end and he was able to hold everybody back and get our first win."
The victory was a boost to both and made the 14-to-16-hour days working on their truck all the more worth it. And now as they return to the historic track, both have their eyes on winning a grandfather clock together, since the 2009 win was the last year they gave away a Cup-like trophy at the track. "We've been close many times," Peters said. "Chad is one-up on me for his previous win there (with Joey Logano in 2015) and he has a clock, so I'd like to add to his collection and I'd like to add a clock to my collection." RELATED: More on Peters' career | Kendrick's career