LONG POND, Pa. – On the stregnth of three NASCAR Camping World Truck Series wins this season Brett Moffitt will take advantage of an off weekend and make his long-awaited return to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East next weekend at Watkins Glen (N.Y) International as his Hattori Racing Enterprises team will field an entry in next Friday afternoon’s Great Outdoors RV 100.
Gunma Toypet, a group of automobile dealerships from Japan will sponsor Moffitt’s No. 1 Toyota Camry. Scott Zipadelli will crew chief.
Moffitt hasn’t competed on the tour in five years, making his last start in the series at Road Atlanta also driving for Hattori Racing in 2013.
In all, Moffitt has 61 starts on the tour with nine wins, 33 top-five and 44 top-10 finishes in five years of competition from 2009-2013.
The Grimes, Iowa native hasn’t raced at the 11-turn course though since 2003 finishing third in his fifth series’ start driving for Andy Santerre.
“I’m kinda excited, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a K&N car,” said Moffitt. “I always love running Watkins Glen. I was able to do it in the Cup race last year. It’s just a fun race track for a road course, it’s fast, high-grip.”
Moffitt says his Truck Series team was able to add the K&N race to his schedule after team owner Shigeaki (Shige) Hattori found sponsorship for the event. But to Moffitt, he sees next weekend’s race as an opportunity to prepare himself for the upcoming road course race in the Truck Series at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next month.
Moffitt will make his second Truck Series run at the Bowmanville, Ontario track. He finished 16th after starting sixth driving for Red Horse Racing in 2016.
“It was Shige’s idea,” explained Moffitt. “He was able to get sponsorship for there and with the road course coming up in the Truck Series I was more than willing to go practice and get some experience since we only run one a year in the trucks, the more I can get on a road course the better.”
Moffitt will turn 26 on Aug. 7 – but said a win at Watkins Glen on Aug. 3 will help get his celebration started not only early – but right.
“That’s (Watkins Glen) leading into my birthday week so if we could start up the birthday week with a win, that would be a lot of fun.”
His team looks for redemption next weekend too. Last August, Ryan Truex started on the pole and led the opening 26 laps of the race but succumbed to a tire failure and a torn-up race car – finishing 19th.
Moffitt says the team’s mentality next week is win-or-bust.
“Obviously, we’re going to get a trophy. They had a really good car with (Ryan) Truex in it and ended up blowing a tire. So, hopefully, we can keep it together and have a really good car.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
