Todd Souza “Heading In The Right Direction” To Start 2019

K&N Pro Series West veteran Todd Souza’s 2019 season may be his most important one yet.

Following a part-time schedule in 2018 (nine of 14 races), Souza and his No. 13 Central Coast Racing team focused their efforts on a full-time slate for this season and compiling funds to make 2019 their best yet.

“We‘re definitely going to run the full schedule this year and see how things go,” he said. “We‘re geared up now, got all the cars ready. And we have a simulator coming which is going to help us out some. We‘ve got the pull down rig working at the shop now. Getting a little help from Junior Joiner, Matt Crafton‘s crew chief. He moved back out here (to California) so he‘s helping us with the setups and stuff with the rig. I think we‘re on track to definitely do better than we‘ve been doing.”

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Souza opened up the season with a top-five effort at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Dirt Track, his sixth career top five and first in two years. Irwindale netted the Watsonville, California, native an 11th-place result a couple weeks back.

“It‘s gone okay,” he said of his season thus far. “We were a little off at Irwindale, weren‘t real happy with that. I know we made some gains. We did okay with the dirt and were happy with that finish, but we probably should have done better. Made an adjustment at the halfway break and got the car a little too tight, couldn’t protect the bottom like we needed to.”

Teenagers Hailie Deegan and Jagger Jones wound up battling for the win at the season-opener. Those two drivers, as well as Trevor Huddleston, Brittney Zamora, Derek Kraus and others, are the newest batch of youngsters to come through the series.

“There‘s definitely some talent there,” he said. “Some of these kids are going to be moving up and making it to the Cup Series. They‘re there, they‘re fast. But they‘re also in good equipment too. They‘re in the best stuff out there. You‘re talking about two, three and four car teams versus smaller teams like us. We have one car, one setup we‘re working off of. But it‘s hard competing with these kids, man. They‘ve been running on something their whole life motorsports wise.”

Souza has been with crew chief Michael Munoz for a whopping 52 races dating back to 2009. Despite the countless races of working together, the two are still adjusting with one another.

“We‘re both learning off each other still,” he said. “I don‘t think you ever quit learning off each other. I think we‘re definitely making progress from where we were last year, we‘re going to be right there. We‘re one of the single car teams that I think can compete with the top three big teams in our series. We‘re definitely heading in the right direction.”

Racing-Reference: Todd Souza Career Statistics

Next up on the series schedule is a trip to Tucson Speedway for the Port of Tucson Twin 100s. The 3/8-mile oval has given Souza some struggles in the past, only scoring one top 10 in four faces, but is going in with a positive outlook.

“Were changing our setups from what we‘ve ran at Tucson in the past,” he said. “Our hopes are high that we‘re going to be competitive this year. We went and tested last week at Willow Springs, real flat, no grip, we were happy with what we gained out of that last week. I think we‘re ready to go.”

The green flag for race No. 1 of the Port of Tucson Twin 100s is scheduled to fly at approximately 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 11. FansChoice.TV will have live coverage of the event.