"Second verse same as the first"

Brandon Whitt and the #38 Cure Autism Now Ford F-150 team head to The Milwaukee Mile, located in West Allis, Wisc., this week for Friday’s Black Cat Fireworks 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race; the ninth race of the season.

Following in the footsteps of former California phenoms Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, Whitt has moved to this level of major league stock car racing. He comes to the Trucks from a successful stint in NASCAR’s Winston West Series – where he qualified on the outside pole for the California race last Spring – and the NASCAR Southwest Touring Series, where he was the 2002 Rookie of the Year.

Jerry Pitts is a veteran crew chief who worked in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series with Bill Elliott, then moved to lead Eric Norris to the 2002 NASCAR Winston West championship. Marty Gaunt is general manager, coming to the team after a winning stint with Penske Racing.

The Cure Autism Now Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and funding autism research and accelerating the pace of scientific progress toward effective treatments and a cure. The organization is the largest private funder of biological research in autism, providing more than $12 million in grants since its inception in 1995.

The thoughts of Cure Autism Now Ford driver Brandon Whitt heading into Milwaukee:

"Nothing would be better than coming back to a track where we have a ton of experience and have run well in the past. But it’s where we have been so many times this season – going to a race track for the very first time, and adjusting as quickly as we can.

"I’m fortunate to have a lot of great experience, successful experience, behind me. That makes a tremendous difference for a rookie. (Crew chief) Jerry Pitts knows what it takes to get these Trucks set up to run well, and we communicate well. We work together and get things where they need to be. >From the logistical side, (general manager) Marty Gaunt has everything set, and that is a tremendous help too. Jerry and Marty together, combined with good experience with the rest of the crew, and I might be a raw rookie at Milwaukee but I feel I have a leg up on other raw rookies.

"Of course I have no experience or idea what The Milwaukee Mile is like. Though I am figuring it to be a mile in distance and probably an oval… and we’ll most likely be making left-hand turns. But, that’s just the life of a rookie in the Craftsman Truck Series.

"Since NASCAR doesn’t let Truck teams test at a track until after the series has made its annual stop there, it really handicaps rookie drivers. What ends up happening is during the two hour practice before qualifying, the rookies are out there trying to figure the track out, as well as prepare the truck for qualifying. That’s a lot on anyone’s platter.

"Luckily we have an experienced crew chief in Jerry Pitts who knows going into these places how the truck should be set-up. He makes up for my inexperience because unlike me, he has seen these tracks before and has a pretty good understanding of what it’s going to take to get around here. Other than that I’ll depend on my steady regiment of film, discussion, and video-games to prepare me for The Milwaukee Mile.

"We’ve had our share of troubles this year, as any rookie team will have. But, for whatever reason we seem to perform better the shorter the track is. That being said, with Milwaukee being only one mile we should be in contention for a top-10 finish. That is if we can avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting caught up in something out of our control.

"That seems to be the story of our season right now. Run well, in the top 15 late in the race and then something happens mechanically or otherwise that keeps us from bringing home a good finish. We’ll get it figured out though. This Cure Autism Now team believes in one another and that’s what it takes to improve and become the team we know we’re capable of being."