Camping World Truck Series: Timothy Peters Is Running Like an Underbird

Underbird - A hard working individual or team, who makes sacrifices to be able to race. One that is determined to no matter what the odds, they'll be successful and be a winner.

FYI, Underbird is the newest word in the NASCAR dictionary. It's a word to commemorate and remember the late 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Champion Alan Kulwicki.

Timothy Peters and Premier Racing have pulled off the impossible. They have the underfunded No. 17 truck running like it's Superman.

Peters ran his heart out in the No. 17 Hayes Iron & Metal/Strutmasters.com Toyota at Martinsville, had it smoking for well over 100 laps.

He had a great finish insight well inside the top 10, when his exhausted truck ran out of fuel with nine laps to go in the race.

Peters brought it home in 22nd position and sits ninth in the driver point standings after four races.

The team is one of the most amazing and exciting stories in NASCAR these days.

When you consider it's a team where Peters and his crew chief Chad Kendrick, are the only two full-time employees.

Kendrick , who also wears many hats on raceday, not only is the crew chief, he's also the teams engine installer and the jack man.

While the two for the most part do most of the work preparing the teams three trucks to race, they do have a bunch of dedicated volunteers that also pitch into help.

They also get support from local business's give them parts and materials to use on there trucks.

On race days, the teams pit crew is made up of former Bobby Hamilton Racing & BHR-VA Racing employees, and they do a great job servicing the 17 truck.

Premier is made up of owners Steve Stallings, Philip Hudgins, and Scott Jones, along with Peters as an equity owner.

The team is based out of Danville, Va., housed in a two car garage owned by Stallings in a subdivision at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Not only do they have their neighborhood's support, but neighbors don't mind when they fire up the engines and even stand on the road side to cheer the Premier team when they head off to race.

While they ran a Toyota at the finale of the 2008 season at Homestead, during the off-season, Peters and Kendrick worked hard converting their trucks from Dodges to Toyotas.

Based on their performance in 2009, it's amazing what they have done with so little, and if you're not aware of their story, you'd think they were a well funded team.

At Daytona, they collected a sixth place finish, ran a rock solid race, and beat a bunch of really good trucks for a top-10 finish.

They rolled into Fontana, collected a hard fought ninth place finish, and were fourth in the driver point standings.

At Hotlanta they ran really well, came home fifteenth, but had two costly pit road penalties that they never overcame and fell to ninth in the driver points.

Like so many teams in 2009, with the bad economy, they are struggling sponsor wise. For the first four races, they had Hayes Iron & Metal and Strutmasters.com on board, and after that they wouldn't have been racing every race.

Fortunately, Strutmasters.com has added two more races, keeping Peters and Premier racing at both Kansas and Charlotte races.

This will give them some more time to find a sponsor, it would be sad not to see this team racing every truck race and it's one, as a fan, you can't help but root for.

It would be too bad, if say, Tilted Kilt was interested in getting into NASCAR and the price with Germain Racing was too high. Then, here's the perfect team to sponsor, with a budget friendly price for a company that's trying to grow bigger.

Peters started racing in Trucks in 2005 with Bobby Hamilton Racing and has always run partial schedules. In 2007, he moved onto RCR as a development driver, but was released after six races.

He came back to the truck series,  and ran three short track races with Randy Moss Motorsports before helping form Premier.

Like every driver in NASCAR, his parents supported him and even went into debt helping him race in late model.

Peters lost his dad in 2001, who was a big part of his racing life. He talked with his Mom about his racing career to come up with entry money to race at Martinsville.

They sold his dad's Corvette, Peters went racing at Martinsville, finished tenth, and Premier Racing was formed shortly after.

Once you hear their story, look at what they've done after four races on a shoe string budget in 2009. You realize it's just several owner's, with a dedicated driver, a MVP of a crew chief, and yes they are winners.

You realize that maybe, just maybe, NASCAR isn't advanced as we think, or at least the trucks aren't, and it's stories like this one that have me hooked on the series.

April first marked the 16th anniversary of the loss of Alan Kulwicki. He was the ultimate Underbird, and it's nice to see that what he started, still lives and breathes today in NASCAR.

Sources: godanriver.com, catchfence.com, speedtv.com + from an interview Krista Voda did on the Set-up last October, scenedaily.com, race-reference.info, and  nascar.com.

Photo Credit: sports.yahoo.com

To the Editors, please don't change the title. The use of the term Underbird is meant as a tribute to the greatest NASCAR Champion the late Alan Kulwicki.