BROOKLYN, Mich. – You don’t have to tell Cameron Hayley he’s running out of time.
The ThorSport Racing driver knows that if he wants to have a shot at partaking in the first ever NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase for the Championship, he’ll likely need to win one of the next three races.
Saturday afternoon’s Careers for Veterans 200, next Sunday afternoon’s Chevrolet Silverado 250 in Canada followed by a stop in the Windy City at Chicagoland Speedway for a Friday night fight in the American Ethanol E15 225 will determine who is in and who is out.
Leaving Pocono (Pa.) Raceway earlier this month with a season-best second place finish, Hayley saw his Eddie Troconis-led team in the final slot. Fast forward two weeks later at Bristol Motor Speedway and the team’s hard work was derailed with a flat tire and a 24th place finish after starting third.
The Calgary, Alberta Canada native now turns to Michigan’s immensely fast and demanding two-mile oval, one of his 13 top-10 finishes last season to right their ship and put them back in contention.
“Anything can happen and I think we’ve seen that already this year,” said Hayley. “I had the worst luck possible this year between broken parts, blown tires and running out of gas – everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. We were sitting 12th going into Pocono and came out with a second-place finish and right then ended up eighth in the Chase spot.
“That definitely tells you that anything can happen on a given weekend. Where we’re at right now, it still tells us that these next three races we need to get a win. Obviously Ben Kennedy winning at Bristol definitely took a Chase spot away and now we only have two left on points.”
With so little spots available for the first round of the Chase in September at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the 19-year-old knows that his No. 13 team has to take chances in order to benefit from a Hail Mary effort with only three checkered flags remaining before fighting for first or ninth in the overall championship picture.
“We’re definitely going to take some chances and go for the win,” added Hayley.
“The funny part about this Chase format, in the past our season really as ThorSport (Racing) as a company has not gone as we wanted it to, but there is potential to stay in. It puts a whole new stress and everything on drivers and now gives us a chance if we do have a bad season, these next few races we have the chance to go out and win and hopefully we can do that and definitely the Chase format gives us that.”
With one of the ThorSport Racing’s four entries driven by Matt Crafton secured into the Chase with wins this season, Hayley’s motivation not only comes from wanting to deliver Duke and Ronda Thorson, two of the series’ longest-active owners another chance for their third Truck Series championship, but Hayley is carrying new colors on his No. 13 Toyota Tundra – a partner that likely will be fluent within the organization until Homestead in November and quite possibly 2017 too.
“Ride TV is our new sponsor that came on board last race and hopefully they’ll be on for the rest of this year,” added Hayley. “They’re a 24-hour equestrian TV show on DirecTV, but looking to expand. They’re just a great fit between ThorSport Farms that my owner Duke Thorson owns.
The whole race team, the two guys, the owners or Ride TV are big races fans. They came to the race and I had some of the most fun I’ve had in a while with them so it’s cool to have Ride TV on board.”
And despite the tragic misfortune of a shop fire earlier this summer at the team’s Sandusky, Ohio race shop – the four-truck team has persevered and overcome huge odds to continue to fight with the passion and hope that never giving up will lead to bigger and better things.
The Chase for Hayley is the door to potentially even bigger and better things.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
