CORNELIUS, N.C. — After surviving only six laps at Daytona before another car ended his day, Trevor Bayne raced every lap and finished 11th at Auto Club Speedway last weekend. The 19-year-old Knoxville, Tenn. native—the Nationwide Series youngest fulltime driver—hopes to continue gaining valuable experience this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In his brief career, Bayne has demonstrated an ability to qualify well despite only 17 Nationwide starts. He already owns a pole in Indianapolis, four top-five and 11 top-10 qualifying spots despite racing against several of the Sprint Cup series biggest stars.
QUOTES
BAYNE ON RACING AGAINST THE CUP DRIVERS: “I like racing against the cup guys every week. If you want to be the best you have to compete against the best. Being able to run against some of the cup guys will help our transition to the next level. We might lose out on some wins but the experience you get from racing with them is much more valuable.”
BAYNE ON QUALIFYING: “Jerry (Baxter) gives me the confidence I need to go out and qualify good each week. He makes some really good adjustments from practice to qualifying. Right now, I don’t know the limits of the cars so I just go out there and hold it wide open and it has equaled some good qualifying laps. I am also pretty young and I haven’t developed fear yet. I mean there is some skill to qualifying fast but holding that pedal down equals some fast qualifying runs as well.”
BAYNE ON LAS VEGAS: “I’ve never been to Las Vegas before. If it’s anything like Atlanta I am really going to like it. I’ve heard that you can hold it wide open there during qualifying so hopefully that will equal a top five starting spot for us. I’ll lean a lot on my cup teammates to help me out during practice. My spotter Brett Griffin will also help me out a lot during practice. He will let me know the lines that the fast guys are running.”
ADDITIONAL NOTES OF INTEREST
• Last weekend at Auto Club Speedway, Bayne was the fifth fulltime NASCAR Nationwide Series regular to cross the finish line. Only Steve Wallace, Kelly Bires, Justin Allgaier and Brian Scott finished higher than the 19-year-older driver. Wallace, Bires and Allgaier have a combined 217 more NNS starts than the young phenom Bayne.
• Bayne will once again have rookie strips on his No. 99 Aaron’s Dream Machine this weekend. The Knoxville, Tenn., native is making his first career start at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas track.
• Bayne will be making two appearances this weekend in Las Vegas. He will be at the NASCAR Café located inside the Sahara Hotel and Casino on Thursday, Feb. 25th from 8-9 p.m. and will be at The Pub located inside the Monte Carlo on Friday, Feb. 26th from 7-7:30 p.m.
• Aaron’s, proud sponsor of the No. 99, will give away an autographed hat to a lucky race fan through Facebook and Twitter following any top-10 finish. Follow Aaron’s on Twitter (@aaronssports) and become a fan on Facebook (Facebook.com/AaronsSports)
• Sirius XM listeners can tune into channel 128 every Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. to hear Bayne’s weekly visit on Sirius Speedway with Mike Bagley and Pete Pistone throughout the 2010 season.
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