Scott Saunders

Scott Saunders is an Australian native and US Karting Champion, He is the 25-year-old made three starts in the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2012, with a best finish of 28th.

Biography
Roo Motorsports, the new Aussie NASCAR team based in Salisbury, plans to enter the truck-racing series next year and perhaps the NASCAR Nationwide Series in the future.

Roo held an event, complete with satellite link to owners in Australia, earlier this month to announce it has an important new sponsor, Sax Suspension, a Down Under manufacturer of auto racing parts.

The Sax sponsorship coincides with the company’s plans to launch products in the U.S. markets for on-road and off-road applications.

Roo driver Scott Saunders, the son of team owner Noel Saunders, says the team chose Rowan County because it felt welcome there.

“The reception from the local community has been outstanding,” Scott Saunders says.

Robert Van Geons, executive director of RowanWorks, says it’s nice to have the Aussie racers in Salisbury. The team is leasing a building in Salisbury Business Park with plans to bring up to 30 jobs to the county.

Saunders picked up the 1st last-place finish of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career in Saturday’s SFP 250 at the Kansas Speedway when his #0 Koma Unwind RAM fell out with a vibration after he completed 2 of the race’s 167 laps. The finish came in Saunders’ first series start.

The 24-year-old from Brisbane, Australia was making his Truck Series debut. In 2012, he ran three races each in the K&N Pro Series East, and the Nationwide Series, and the X-1R Pro Cup Series, the latter resulting in three Top Tens. His best Nationwide finish came in his series debut at Iowa, when he finished 28th in the #24 inox / Standout Wraps Chevrolet owned by Jason Sciavicco.

At Kansas, Saunders fielded Jennifer Jo Cobb’s “start-and-park” #0 entry, a team making its first start since Homestead last November, where the #0's driver Blake Koch tied Dennis Setzer for the LASTCAR lead with the #0's most recent last-place finish in the Truck Series. However, Koch lost the LASTCAR Truck Series Championship on a bottom-five tiebreaker with Setzer, 12-5. Kansas also saw the first start of the season for RSS Racing’s #38, the truck Setzer raced to that title. Yeley put the #38 22nd in Saturday’s field while Saunders timed in 32nd at a speed of 167.312 mph

In the race itself, Saunders’ truck was the first behind the wall, followed two laps later by Yeley, who edged RSS teammate Chris Jones in the #93. Jennifer Jo Cobb, in her own #10, finished 17th in the crash-filled race, her best finish since Kentucky last summer.

Statistics

 * Saunders is the first Australian to finish last in a Truck Series race (excepting Tasmania’s Marcos Ambrose, who finished last at Charlotte in 2006). He is the first foreign-born driver to finish last in the series since this race three years ago, when India’s Narain Karthikeyan crashed his #60 SafeAuto Insurance Chevrolet 7 laps into the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250.
 * Saunders is the first Truck Series driver to finish last in his series debut since Greg Seevers at Iowa in 2011, when his #75 Norm Benning Racing Chevrolet overheated after 3 laps of the Coca Cola 200.
 * This was the first last-place finish for the #0 in a Truck Series race at Kansas since 2008, when Wayne Edwards’ #0 PAD Motorports / Green Light Chevrolet fell out with a vibration after 2 laps of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250. Edwards currently has the most last-place finishes in Truck Series history - 13.

NASCAR
(key) ( Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. )

Camping World Truck Series
$$ Season still in progress $1$ Ineligible for series points