Building a Foundation … Chase Purdy enters the first road course race of the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season in the midst of building a strong foundation and has an opportunity to continue his progression at Circuit of the Americas (COTA). The driver of the No. 61 BAMA Buggies Toyota Tundra TRD Pro is coming off a pair of top-15 finishes to start his season, including a resilient effort last week at Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS) after starting at the tail of the field. Purdy has gained 17 positions in the championship standings in the last two races thanks to consecutive 14th-place results.
Continuing a Streak … The Meridian, Miss. driver continued his streak of consistent results with a track-best result last Saturday afternoon at AMS (14th). Dating back to Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) last September, Purdy has recorded four top-15 finishes in his last six starts, which include top-15’s in his first two starts with HRE. He looks to continue his streak of top-15’s on Saturday in his second appearance at COTA. Purdy has two Camping World Trucks road course starts under his belt and finished 27th in the inaugural event at COTA last season.
Chassis Selection … Crew chief Matt Lucas and the BAMA Buggies team have prepared chassis No. 004 for Purdy’s first road course race with the No. 61 team. This chassis has been a reliable staple in HRE’s stable for road course racing and most recently finished fifth at Daytona International Speedway’s road course in 2020 with Austin Hill at the wheel. This Tundra TRD Pro has a best finish of third at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (CTMP) with Brett Moffitt in 2018 and has finished in the top five in its last four outings dating back to 2017.
Tune In … FOX Sports 1 has live coverage of all on-track activity beginning on Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. ET for practice and qualifying. FS1’s raceday coverage begins Saturday with NASCAR Raceday at Noon ET followed by the green flag at 1:00 p.m. ET. Stay connected with the No. 61 BAMA Buggies team by following @Hattori_Racing on Twitter, @hattoriracing on Instagram, and Hattori Racing Enterprises on Facebook.
Chase Purdy Quote:
On the first road course race of the season:
“I haven’t done a lot of road course racing over the years, but I’ve definitely learned a lot and gotten more comfortable in the last year since we’ve had more on the schedule. Our team has done a great job of rebounding after Daytona by putting some solid finishes together, and I think we can do it again on Saturday with our BAMA Buggies Toyota Tundra TRD Pro. We’ve had to overcome some adversity in both races this season, so if we can put together a clean afternoon, we can put ourselves in position for our first top-10 this year. The guys at HRE won a road course race last year at Watkins Glen, so I feel like we have a really good starting point for the weekend, and we’d like to give Toyota a good run since the Tundra TRD Pros are made right down the road in San Antonio. I’m definitely looking forward to racing in normal dry conditions on Saturday, so hopefully we can do all the right things and put a solid weekend together.”
HRE PR
