Rollins Brings Lessons Learned, Championship Pedigree
To HT Motorsports Truck Series Team


Martinsville, VA (April 13, 2007) - Danny Rollins knows what it’s like to be a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race- and championship-winning crew chief capturing the title with Bobby Hamilton, Sr. in 2004.

“We had a great group of guys at Bobby Hamilton Racing and everything we needed to win the title,” said Rollins. “It all came together at one time. Now, the goal is to do it again so no one will ever think it’s a fluke. I know I can do it again – it just takes the right opportunity and the right group of guys.”

Rollins thinks that opportunity exists at HT Motorsports in Martinsville, VA where he is now the crew chief for driver Terry Cook and the team’s fleet of No. 59 Toyota Tundras. Rollins knows it will be tough for the group – together as a unit for the first time this season – to even come close to Hamilton’s 2004 championship effort. Still, the 34-year-old Rollins, one of the youngest crew chiefs in the division, has high hopes.

“I have expectations and, realistically, I want to win some races,” said Rollins. “I want to run well in as many races as we can and take all the Top-5 and Top-10 finishes that come with that. I want to be a championship contending team. I know how hard it is to win. I know what it took to win just three years ago in 2004 and the competition level has gotten better since then. We’re going to have a learning curve here to start with, but I think we have the ability to achieve most, if not all of our goals and expectations, by the end of the season.”

That learning curve has been a roller coaster ride for Rollins and the HT Motorsports team through the first four races of the 2007 Truck Series season. At Daytona, Cook qualified seventh but started in the back because of cooling system adjustments needed in impound after qualifying. Undaunted, Cook raced to the front of the pack to challenge for the lead only to have contact from behind send his Tundra into the Daytona tri-oval retaining wall where it erupted into a spectacular fireball.

Fortunately, Cook wasn’t hurt, but the team went home with a scorched race truck and a disappointing 27th-place finish.

At California, Cook struggled with handling throughout the event and finished a distant 30th. In mid-March, the kill switch on Cook’s steering wheel broke on the team’s qualifying run at Atlanta again putting them at the back of the starting grid. Later, a cut tire put Cook into the wall midway through the race, but solid pit work salvaged the team’s then best finish – 17th.

In the most recent NCTS event at Martinsville, Cook qualified 10th, got a lap down for a pit road exit penalty, and raced his way back on to the lead lap late in the race finishing 15th.

“I said it’s going to take us a bit,” said Rollins, noting the team has climbed to 19th in the standings, just 112 markers out of 10th. “We’ve had some rough spots and some tough breaks, but we’re getting better. It’ll come. We just have to continue to work hard and be patient.

Rollins knows all about patience – something he learned a lot about during his years spent with Hamilton.

“Everything that I probably learned that was right about racing – and the wrong things not to do - I learned from Bobby Hamilton, Sr.,” said Rollins, who came to BHR from the ARCA ranks where he crewed for Bobby Hamilton, Jr. “Things I do today are because of my experience at the Hamilton deal. Bobby Sr. was a lot more than just a racecar driver, so I had a good role model in everything we did.”

Unfortunately, the glow of the 2004 championship faded for Rollins as Hamilton, Sr. contracted cancer late in 2005. Subsequent changes at BHR forced Rollins to look for other career opportunities midway through last season and the best of those in Rollins’ mind was with team owner Jim Harris and HT Motorsports.

“When things were winding down for me at Hamilton’s, I talked to Jim about coming up here to Martinsville to do his truck team,” Rollins stated. “When he told me he would do whatever it takes to win races, I knew this was a good opportunity, the right opportunity for me.“

According to Rollins, his association with Harris and HT almost occurred several years earlier.

“Jim had a Busch deal all put together some time back and he called me to crew chief it,” said Rollins. “We got everything all settled and I packed up my house on Friday. On Monday, he called to say sponsorship for the deal had fallen through. It was kind of tough at the time. I didn’t have a house, much less a job. I knew it would all work out and I knew things would come back around again and I’d work with Jim someday. We’ve been friends for a long time. I knew nothing would change that.”

Rollins and Harris are both hoping better things are in order for the team as the season progresses. Some of those might be just over the horizon as Cook is the defending champion of the next event on the NCTS tour at Kansas Speedway and has run well in the past at Charlotte and Mansfield – two other tracks coming up on the schedule.

“Terry has been good at those tracks and I’ve had success at those places too,” said Rollins. “We have a lot of challenges in front of us, both on and off the racetrack. One of the biggest is to draw quality people to Martinsville, which is not in the middle of a racing hub. We’ve been fortunate to bring some experienced people up here, but you don’t have as big a pool of highly experienced here that you might have if the team was in the Charlotte area for instance. You sometimes wind up taking on people with less experience and try to train them up. That’s not a bad thing, especially if the person has a lot of heart. I’ll take heart over experience every day. It just takes time to train those people up.”

Based on past experience, Rollins is the right person for the job.

“I think we can get it done here,” said Rollins. “Jim is committed to success, there isn’t a single thing I don’t like about Terry, we have a great group of guys, and we have great support from Toyota. Like I said, it might take a little time, but we’re going to get there.”