By: Ashley McCubbin

Sometimes when you stick a microphone in front of a driver’s face – especially when they’re mad, you have no clue what they may say and a couple of times you’ll hear something that surprises you or gives you a bit of a perspective.

Throughout the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season, there were quite a few of these moments. So it seems only fitting we take a glance back through the year at what was said

“I think it relieved all the pressure for me. I feel any extra pressure at all. I can breathe easier. I feel everything is coming to me easier on the race track. I feel like my whole world has gotten better as a whole. Certainly a life changing experience. Now that I have it, I can’t live without it – and it’s funny. Before you win a championship, every race win is so special and important. But after you win a championship, race wins just seem like stepping stones to the championship. Race wins to me don’t give me the thrill a championship does. Don’t get me wrong – I love winning races, and I’d love to win every single race, but it’s changed my perspective on winning a little bit. I don’t see it as a monumental thing anymore. I just see it as a stepping stone to get to the next big trophy given out at the end of the year.” – Ben Rhodes

“Her lingo is pretty much the same, I feel like. We kind of look for the same thing in a car. so I’m excited to get to Daytona and be with her.  This will be the second time I’ve done this with Hailie, so it will be fun to go down there.  The last time we were there was the first time she’d ever ran anything on a road course, so now to go back with her, she’s probably ran three or four truck races now and has run some other IMSA stuff, so it’ll be fun to see her improvement as a race car driver. She does a really good job in a lot of different disciplines and it’ll be fun to go down there and do a totally fairly new discipline to both of us and go down there and just have a good time.” – Chase Briscoe on Hailie Deegan

“It certainly helps. Matt and Johnny (Sauter) have both been racing a long time, and then you have Ty (Majeski) who has a lot of starts behind the wheel. Combined experience between the three of us, it’s certainly very beneficial going into each weekend in working together. I feel we have a good team camaraderie going together.” – Christian Eckes on his ThorSport Racing teammates

#23: Grant Enfinger, GMS Racing, Champion Power Equipment Chevrolet Silverado

“That’s part of racing, you know. The good drivers manage it better and historically, I’ve kind of been able to manage that stuff. It’s difficult. Everybody wants to go out there and win races all throughout the season. Actually, at the beginning of the season, it was not in the cards for us. We just didn’t have the speed. But now we’re starting to get into that area where we have come further than halfway towards going out to dominate one of those races. As a racer, you want to put on one of those boring races where you sit on the pole and lead a bunch of laps and dominate. We have been a far cry from that, but I feel we’ve started out the year a 12^th or 13^th place truck at Las Vegas, and at Charlotte, we were a top-five truck throughout the night. Darlington, we were a top-five truck all night long, so I feel like we’re trending in the right direction. Now it’s a matter of getting a little extra which sometimes is the most difficult times. But Charles has done a good job leading our team. Nobody has given up, everybody has worked really hard. I look at Knoxville as an opportunity for our Championship Power Equipment team. I feel it’s a place that I like the dirt racing, it’s all about mechanical grip, putting yourself in the right place, and trying to adapt to the situation, and I feel like we’ve been able to do that this year.” – Grant Enfinger

“I didn’t grow up short track racing. That was totally new to me. I short tracked after a truck race, but that’s not the same. That’s something that definitely I feel like we find in common. I feel like that kind of dirt racer feel is to drive in a little bit harder, so I know that his braking points are definitely gonna be that maximum level, so there are some things you just know about other dirt racers and you have that feel and that certain driving style where you maybe overdrive it a little bit, but that’s kind of anticipated when you restart, so I think it’s just gonna make it a little bit easier to understand. Our lingo will be a lot similar as he said, but I feel like he’s a good person to look up to and kind of see as a mentor role of being able to be like, ‘Hey, I need help with us or I need help with that.’ I definitely trust his opinion and his experience with everything.” – Hailie Deegan

“To me, it’s just longevity and the ability to stick around the sport that long and be successful and have enough respectful owners that want to keep giving you rides. I think one of the cool things is I’ve done it all three series – right now, I’m the only one that has over 200 starts in all three series. I think that’s pretty cool also.” – Todd Bodine