The wrapping paper came off the 22-year-old driver’s plans for next season Wednesday morning at the NASCAR Hall of Fame as he joined veteran Timothy Peters on Red Horse Racing’s full-time lineup in the Camping World Truck Series. Shortly after pulling the cover off the No. 11 Toyota Tundra he’ll drive in 2015, Kennedy was finally able to exhale.
"It’s been tearing me apart, to be honest, not to say anything. Even my friends and family, I can’t tell," Kennedy said. "I wanted to keep it under wraps as much as possible. I feel like we did a good job, but it’s been tough. But to be here and to actually talk about it, being able to make this announcement helps so much more in helping find partners and crew chiefs, saying you’re in an established organization with a manufacturer with a very good reputation. I’m glad to be standing here with this awesome-looking truck."
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In welcoming Kennedy, team owner Tom DeLoach said that the symbolism of the truck’s number was intentional. The two number ones represent the individual drivers, DeLoach said, and the box lining the numerals suggests the team’s solidarity. That the number happens to be among the most successful and winningest in NASCAR history was a happy coincidence.
"When you can get a guy that’s kind of like two brothers with a lot of the same personality traits, they can love each other but they’ll also push each other," DeLoach said. "That’s what I’m hoping to see this year. It kind of comes down to they’re both amazingly humble, they both try to please, they’re both very good listeners that will push their crew chiefs and want to get better. So I think both of them are going to really jell together."
Kennedy spent his rookie year with Turner Scott Motorsports last season, finishing ninth in the final series standings. His lone top-five came in the second race of the season, when he finished a career-best third place at Martinsville Speedway. Along the way, the great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. earned his degree from the University of Florida in May and fielded a team in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East for NASCAR Next driver Kenzie Ruston.
In making the next step in his budding stock-car racing career, he’ll work with Peters, a consistent contender who has notched at least one victory in each of the last six seasons.
"Like Timothy touched on a little bit, I think we have a lot of chemistry — talking at autograph sessions, being around each other — and that’s the beauty of the truck series," Kennedy said. "There’s not a ton of people and it’s all very close-knit. If you have an issue at the track, another team will be there to help you out. Red Horse has really been those guys."
Peters, 34, will return to his familiar No. 17 Tundra for the seventh consecutive season as a full-time driver. His long-running partnership with DeLoach has produced all eight of his victories thus far in his truck series career. Peters wound up fifth in the series standings last season, the brightest highlight coming in a stirring victory at Talladega Superspeedway in an overtime finish.
Peters said his longevity at Red Horse has been an overwhelming positive and that he hasn’t entertained the thought of leaving. In working to guide Kennedy’s growth next year, his job takes on a new, eagerly awaited challenge.
"It’s exciting to have a teammate come in who’s very passionate, wanting to win and wanting to run well," Peters said of Kennedy. "As a race car driver, that’s all of our goals is to go out there and get the best finish possible, but we want to bring home that trophy and the checkered flag. The chemistry that I see between he and I from the little bit of time we’ve spent is going to be very powerful when we break out for Speedweeks in Daytona and throughout the 23-race schedule."
The lineup announcement leaves German Quiroga, a Red Horse driver the last two seasons, as the odd man out for the Mooresville, North Carolina-based team. DeLoach said that he has all the equipment and resources for fielding a third truck in select events, but that sponsorship is still needed. The 67-year-old team owner said that Quiroga’s two main backers — Net10 and Otterbox — had informed the team that they would not participate in the truck series next season.
The 34-year-old Mexico native was sixth in the series standings last year, finishing second twice in a quest for his first victory in a NASCAR national series.
"Unfortunately, it’s one of the hard, cold facts of this sport is that you have to have funds, and if they say they’re not participating, then all of a sudden the funding goes away," DeLoach said. "German’s still out looking for sponsorship, I still have an open seat, so we’re still looking. Right now, it would be disingenuous of me to tell you that something’s in place because I know it isn’t yet. But he’s working on it.
"He’s a great guy. I feel sorry about that because I think it was an opportunity. I wanted to be the first one to have a Hispanic driver to win a race. I would say we got him in position in at least four races this year that we could’ve won the race. It didn’t pan out that way, but we at least put him in position. As a race team, that’s all we can do. You’ve just got to get that last little bit."
DeLoach said Marcus Richmond would continue to serve as crew chief of Peters’ No. 17, and that he had narrowed down the search for Kennedy’s crew chief to a short list of candidates. DeLoach also said that Red Horse will partner next season with engine supplier Triad Racing Technologies, the engine builder that has powered ThorSport Racing driver Matt Crafton to back-to-back Camping World Truck Series championships the last two years.
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