TAKE FIVE: Erin Crocker

Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 | 7:33 a.m.

It hasn't been the smoothest of seasons for Erin Crocker, who was handpicked out of the sprint-car ranks by NASCAR team owner Ray Evernham to be one of his developmental drivers.

Although she's on the fast track to a possible full-time ride in the Nextel Cup Series, Crocker admits her first full season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has been "frustrating."

Crocker, the only female driver competing full time in the Truck Series, is 24th in points going into Saturday night's Smith's Las Vegas 350 truck race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

There have been as many disappointments as there have been flashes of brilliance - such as when she qualified second earlier this season at Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C.

And then there was that ugly mess last month when Crocker, 25, was dragged into the middle of a legal tangle between Jeremy Mayfield and Evernham after Mayfield was fired from his ride in one of Evernham's Nextel Cup cars.

Mayfield alleged in a lawsuit that Evernham and Crocker were involved in a "close personal relationship" that was a distraction to the Nextel Cup team and responsible for Mayfield's poor performance on the track.

Crocker has declined to respond publicly to Mayfield's allegation, but she talked about a wide range of racing-related subjects as she prepared for her first race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Making progress

Crocker, who in 2004 became the first female driver to win a World of Outlaws main event, said her adjustment to stock cars - and trucks - has been more difficult than she had anticipated.

"We started off slow, which we assumed because I'm a rookie and we're a rookie team. But as the season went on, we slowly started to get better and better and had a few decent runs, and then the last five or six races have not been good for us.

"It's frustrating. There have been different issues at different times. Sometimes it's been me and sometimes it's been mechanical failure. For one reason or another, we're just not putting it together and that's definitely hard on (everybody)."

One of the guys?

Although she is the only female driver competing full time in the series, Crocker said she feels she has been accepted by most of her competitors.

"I think I've earned some respect in the series and with everyone, really, in NASCAR. We haven't gotten the results that we would have liked and people can look at that and say, 'Oh, gosh, you definitely don't belong out there.' But the guys that are in the series and know racing well see that there are times in races where I pass a lot of trucks. There are times where I've been really fast, and they see that potential that I have.

"A lot of veterans in the series have been really willing to help, and obviously they've been around racing long enough to know that if they saw no hope, they wouldn't even consider helping."

High hopes

Crocker's two best finishes this season have been a 16th-place effort at Kansas Speedway and an 18th-place showing at Lowe's Motor Speedway - both 1.5-mile tracks like Las Vegas.

"I'm looking forward to it," she said of Saturday's race. "We've had fairly good success on the mile-and-a-half tracks with banking; so I'm glad it's more (steeply) banked."

The banking in the corners at LVMS was increased from 12 to 20 degrees as part of a track renovation that was completed last month.

Settling in

Achieving a comfort level in the Truck Series has been a race-by -race proposition for Crocker.

"Some weeks you feel good and you feel like you're ready to go show the world that you can do this and do it tomorrow, and then there are other days that you're like, 'What in the world am I doing?' I think that's just part of a rookie season; I think every rookie has that.

"Now, compared to the beginning of the year, I definitely have a much higher comfort level getting in the truck."

Looking ahead

Although the Nextel Cup Series is her ultimate goal, Crocker said she will return to the Truck Series next year armed with lessons learned from this season.

"If you look back to a lot of the Cup guys when they ran Busch or a series below Cup, they struggled their first year, and this is really my first year in stock cars.

"Sometimes I put more pressure on myself than I need to, or I have higher expectations than I really should but I think having this year under my belt and hopefully getting past some of the mechanical failure issues and with me having more experience, we can put some good runs together."