Kaz Grala, who was originally going to drive Kyle Busch Motorsports’s Martinsville machine, is back with Garrett Campbell’s team to attempt another shot at the win this year.
KBM was set to make their Martinsville debut this weekend with Grala behind the wheel, but the rain date caused a clash in schedule, and the team is instead competing in the Winchester 400.
“It’s a little stressful being behind the eight ball as far as everybody else here, for the most part, has tested and, you know, I was in a different car for the test,” Grala explained. “So, we’re going have to kind of start a little bit from scratch here, but at least we know we’ve got a good set up from last year that we are going to start with as a baseline, but I think we will be able to get it dialed in.”
The team will have two to three hours of practice time to get the car exactly where they want it for tomorrow’s race. Unfortunately, the car that they ran here last year got wrecked, but Grala has already gained experience in his machine for this weekend.
Bridging the gap between the car he tested and the car he is running here this weekend has been a difficult and stressful task.
“It’s really hard because KBM has an in-house chassis so you can’t really exactly translate that to a different car, but we did just shake this car down on Wednesday at Caraway. So I’ve made a few laps in the car. I think it feels good, so, you know, nothing to worry about there. As far as specifically this track, I guess we’ll find out here in about an hour.”
Grala is confident in himself and his team to get the car dialed in exactly how they want it for tomorrow’s event.
RACE22.com’s Andy Marquis contributed to this report.
