MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Barely a month after her breakthrough run at Daytona Int’l Speedway, Angela Ruch has found a home for the majority of the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series season.
Ruch, along with officials from Niece Motorsports, announced Saturday at Martinsville Speedway that she will pilot the No. 44 Chevrolet Silverado for the Al Niece-owned organization in 12 races this year.
The 35-year-old native of Puyallup, Wash., will kick off her Truck Series schedule at Texas Motor Speedway on March 29.
Rush will then compete in events at Kansas Speedway on May 10, Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway on May 17, Texas on June 7, Illinois’ Chicagoland Speedway on June 28, Kentucky Speedway on July 11, Pocono (Pa.) Raceway on July 27, Michigan Int’l Speedway on Aug. 10, Canadian Tire Motorsports Park on Aug. 25, Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 13 and Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 12
She will conclude her year at the season finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on Nov. 15.
Ruch picked up her first Truck Series top-10 finish at Daytona on Feb. 15, coming home eighth for NEMCO Motorsports in just her second-ever start, and is optimistic about the future with her new team.
“I have to thank Al for this opportunity; it has been a dream come true for me to be able to sign this deal and now to run with his team,” said Ruch. “He’s the only (armed forces) veteran team owner in NASCAR right now and I’m blessed to be a part of it with him. I’m super excited and looking forward to some great things.
“Most of the tracks that I’ve signed on for, I’ve been to pretty much all of them, with the exception of Talladega,” Ruch continued. “This seemed like a great group of guys and I couldn’t be more thankful.”
With Niece Motorsports’ primary entry, the No. 45, ranked third in Truck Series owner points through the first three races of the season, Ruch knows that she needs to come out swinging at Texas next week.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself (to perform),” Ruch told SPEED SPORT. “We had a decent run in (Las) Vegas; we just had some communication problems that made that a little difficult for us. All in all, though, I just feel like I’m putting myself in a great situation with some great equipment. They’ve really shown a lot of speed, so the pressure is there to go out and do the best I can for them.
“When you add to that the fact that there’s only a few of us women out there right now, we want to step up our game and I want to step up my game … and I feel confident that I can do that.”
Niece is excited not just about bringing Ruch onboard with his team, but about the fast start his third-year organization has gotten off to this season.
Through the first three races of the year, Niece-owned trucks have scored five of the team’s eight-career top-10 finishes, with Chastain’s third-place standing in owner points the highest-ever mark for the team.
“Angela’s program came to us real early in the year, and we thought it might be a good fit for our second truck,” Niece told SPEED SPORT. “We’ve had a lot of changes happen quickly in the first part of the year, with Ross (Chastain) coming on and TruNorth stepping up as well. … We’ve just been looking for bigger things and I think today’s announcement is another evolution of that.
“Obviously, we really like where we’re at right now. Ross has really helped our program step up,” Niece added. “Cody (Efaw, general manager) has really turned our team around through the winter. We refocused and worked to build off the drivers we had come in who whetted our appetite to want to improve. Now we want to continue this momentum we’ve started to build and see what we can do.”