By Christian Koelle, Staff Writer
Eric Caudell will return to action this weekend at the Talladega Superspeedway.
After finishing 16th in the season opener at Daytona, Caudell and the team didn’t make the trip out west but will kick off the remainder of their partial schedule this weekend.
In his ARCA Menards Series career, Caudell has 53 starts to his credit with a career-best finish of eighth at Winchester last season. In his Superspeedway career, Caudell has a combined seven starts with the best finish of 14th at Talladega last season. Three of those career starts came at Talladega.
“Superspeedways are 50/50 getting out undamaged but I am confident going to ‘Dega because we had a good car at Daytona, and almost finished top 10,” said Caudell. “We came back and immediately began improving the car for Talladega. We are going there to run as hard as we can and try to be in the top 10 at the end.”
As for the remainder of the 2021 season, Caudell and the team will run the race following Talladega at Kansas on May 1st. He’s also slated to race at Elko Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Winchester, Illinois State Fairgrounds, the Milwaukee Mile, DuQuoin State Fairgrounds, Bristol Motor Speedway, and finish up the season at Kansas in October.
“We have improved the program every year and now we are trying to run in the top 10 so we can set our sights on some top 5 finishes,” added Caudell.
Jeremy Petty will return to the pit box this weekend and beyond as he has done with Caudell since Daytona in 2019. Petty was the crew chief for Caudell in his career-best finish last year at Winchester. His experience on the pit box is also followed by starts in both the ARCA Menards Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
“Our goal this year is to be cautiously aggressive,” said Petty. “We have a limited inventory of cars, so it doesn’t make sense to put ourselves in a precarious position, so we will have to choose our battles. We want to try and pit with some of the guys we are racing around. If we pit with cars that are faster than us, we will lose the draft and our day is hosed. So I will have to be mindful of that as the race progresses.”
Cover Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography