DAYTONA -- By playing it cautious throughout the race, Chris Fontaine drove the Glenden Enterprises/Bullshades #84 NCWTS Toyota Tundra to his first career top ten finish with 7th in the NCWTS 2012 season opener at Daytona International Speedway on February 24.

It was Fontaine’s 32nd NCWTS career start, and only his 2nd NCWTS career start at Daytona.

“The truck practiced really well and it was fast. We were disappointed with qualifying since that was the worst that truck had ever qualified, but it runs really strong in the draft,” he said, continuing, “Our plan was to sit back and wait for the wrecks to happen and be there at the finish. Since we hadn’t finished a superspeedway race yet, our main goal was to finish.”

Although Fontaine’s average position was 24th, he had 5 of the fastest laps during the race, and ran in the top 15 for five laps towards the end of the race, the ones that counted.

“It wasn’t the most impressive run for us, but it did create the best finish, and that is what we needed. Our plan is to get the first five races out of the way and see where we end up. In the big picture it worked out very well even though it wasn’t as impressive as our other speedway runs, but we did finish better, so we’re happy with it, and we’re looking forward to Martinsville,” Fontaine said.

He was the number one closer, improving his position in the last 10 percent of the race by 19 positions.

“We knew we could advance our position at the end a lot easier with a lot of the trucks being out of the way”, Fontaine said.

During the race, Fontaine had to go into the infield to avoid one of the multi-truck wrecks that happened right in front of him. “I have done it before and it sometimes pays off. Mainly, there was just nowhere else to go, and I kept aware of where I was at and where the wheels were at and the direction I was going and was able to pull it out and get back up there and get back in position.

Fontaine starts the season 6th in points, only one point behind Todd Bodine.

Fontaine is 7th in owner points.

“Thanks to all the people and all the hard work that went into getting the truck there, and let’s go do it again,” he said.

The next NCWTS race for Chris Fontaine and the #84 Glenden Enterprises team will be the Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway on March 31 at 1:00 PM ET and will be televised on SPEED.

“We are planning to run the first five races, and if we get someone on board, we would like to run more of them,” Fontaine added.