LOUDON, N.H. – Tom Carey Jr. was hoping for better.

But an accident on lap 166 ended the afternoon for the Craftsman Truck Series driver in the New England 200 Saturday. He was running in the top 15 at the time.

Carey, who finished 28th, drives for E.J. Prescott Incorporated, which is based in Gardiner.

They are the state’s tie to the truck series.

“This was our third race and we’re going to run four more,” said Carey, who is 39th in points. “We were hoping for a good run today but it didn’t happen.”

There have been 12 truck races so far.

“We ran seven or eight races last year but we couldn’t capitalize on a sponsorship deal. We had a couple of things in the works,” said Carey.

Carey, crew chief Tom Pearl and crew member Adam Ross work on the trucks.

“We were hoping to have a good run but we struggled all weekend,” said Carey.

Carey said it is difficult to be consistent when he doesn’t race every week.

“There were new tires and we hadn’t run them in a race yet. We apparently missed something. You can’t test your trucks at the tracks you race at. It would have been nice to have been able to test here. Then we would have been ready for them,” said the 37-year-old Carey. “We did the best we could.”

Pearl said things have been a little tough with the trucks lately.

“It’s tough to show up every six or seven races and run with these guys,” he said. “The technology changes about every day and a half. You think you have a hot setup but by the time you get it installed in the truck, they’ve changed everything again. We don’t have the technology they have in Charlotte, North Carolina. By the time it gets to us, it’s already old news.

“We’ve been struggling with our qualifying setups but, during the races, the truck seems to stay consistent throughout the whole race while everybody else seems to fall off quite a bit. We’ve been a top 10 truck in our three races but we haven’t had any luck.”

Pearl said the Prescott family has to foot the bill and there is only so much they can do.

“They enjoy racing but you can only enjoy it so much. It costs so much money. It’s a little tough on them. They always make sure we have good equipment. They don’t skimp on anything. But they can’t spend $200,000 a day on the wind tunnel [testing],” added Pearl.

The team, which had an eighth-place finish at Dover Downs earlier this year, will race again in a few weeks in Indianapolis.

They will continue to search for a sponsor and hope to impress them with solid performances the rest of the year.

“We’ll keep digging,” said Carey.

Bodine builds bobsleds

Ten years ago, Winston Cup driver Geoffrey Bodine saw the United States bobsled teams struggle miserably at the Albertville Olympics. They were driving hand-me-down sleds from other European nations.

It didn’t sit well with him so he set about improving the situation by putting together a team which built bobsleds for the U.S. team.

The teams steadily improved and hit paydirt in Salt Lake City this past winter by winning gold, silver and bronze medals. The women’s team won the gold.

“I really felt our like our American athletes should be using American-made equipment,” said Bodine. “They weren’t using it then and they weren’t getting good equipment. So I decided to do something about it.”

He was overjoyed with the results in Salt Lake City.

“A lot of really neat things happened at the last Olympics. I was very thankful and very proud to be a part of it. It was really, really fantastic,” said Bodine.

He said bobsleds and race cars aren’t the least bit alike but “we used the same method of building things.

“The way we approach building a race car is the same approach we use to build the bobsleds. You can look at our bobsleds and say ‘Those guys build race cars.’ You can tell by the workmanship and the approach,” said Bodine.

They continue to build the bobsleds because, as in race cars, the technology never stops improving.

“You’re always trying to make them better, faster. I’m sure by the next Olympics, we’ll find some little gadget that will make them go a little quicker,” said Bodine.

They are currently preparing the bobsleds for the World Cup season in Europe that begins in October.

“It takes a lot of work to get these things ready,” said Bodine.

One thing that helps is they can test the sleds at Salt Lake City.

“The first time we built the sleds, we had to go to Calgary and test them. Now we can go to Salt Lake City,” said Bodine. “We’re in good shape now.”

Bodine said he is enjoying the bobsleds.

“I love it,” said Bodine.

He has been in a bobsled but didn’t have the same feeling for them that brother Todd had.

“Todd rode three or four times and loved it. It scared me,” said Geoffrey Bodine.

Nadeau has Maine connection

Winston Cup driver Jerry Nadeau has some Maine roots.

His father, Gerard, is from Madawaska and his mother, Pauline, is from the Edmunston, New Brunswick area.

Nadeau’s father left for Danbury, Conn., “when he was 18 or 19.

“All my relatives still live up there,” said Nadeau, who drove the No. 10 Valvoline Pontiac for the injured Johnny Benson in the New England 300 on Sunday.

Nadeau said his dad used to race at the short tracks in Connecticut and that’s how he got introduced to the sport.

The 31-year-old Nadeau got his start in kart racing and won 10 World Karting Association and International Karting Association titles between 1984 and 1990. He raced in the Busch Grand National series and was sixth overall, the highest American finisher ever, in the 1996 Formula Opel European series. He ran 13 of 16 races.

He made his Winston Cup debut in 1997 and had his best season last year when he was 17th in points for the Rick Hendrick Motorsports team.

He lost his ride in May and is currently looking for a full-time ride.

In addition to his parents, he said he had a cousin, Danny Nadeau, in attendance at Sunday’s race.

“He’s from Portland,” said Nadeau.

Nadeau hasn’t spent much time in Maine but knows it has a rich tradition in racing.