TIMOTHY PETERS
CREW CHIEF: Marcus Richmond (2015) / TBD (2016)
TEAM: Red Horse Racing
POINTS: 5th
WINS: 2
TOP 5s: 8
TOP 10s: 16
LAPS LED: 115
POLES: 1
WHAT WENT RIGHT: Timothy Peters had an outstanding second half of the season, winning two of the final five races and earning six top-five and two other top-six finishes in his last eight races. … Peters won two races in 2015 after just one win in 2014. He also was slightly higher in top-10 finishes (16 in 2015 vs. 13 in 2014). He also had his first pole since 2012. … This is always a good thing: Peters earned $504,697 in race winnings in 2015, second-most of his career. … That’s consistency: Peters has earned four top-five and two other top-10 season finishes in the last six seasons. … Peters had the second-best per-race finishing average of his career in 2015: 9.6, second only to his 8.3 per-race finishing average in 2012. ... Also, Peters won Denny Hamlin’s Short Track Showdown in April in South Boston, Va.
WHAT WENT WRONG: Three DNF’s in the first seven races put Peters behind an eight-ball that he couldn’t recover from. He crashed at Daytona and Dover and lost an engine the following week at Texas, dropping him to ninth in the Truck standings. He tried to fight back from there, but the damage in terms of the standings was already done – and he played catch-up the rest of the season.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2016: The biggest question going forward is who will become Peters’ crew chief. Marcus Richmond departed after two seasons and has moved to GMS Racing, where he’ll be crew chief for Johnny Sauter. … Can Peters finally earn his first Truck Series championship in 2016? He came close in 2012, finishing second. Perhaps his new crew chief – whenever it’s announced – may be the missing part to the championship equation for the North Carolina native.
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