Robert Richardson has had a rough rookie season, but things are starting to look up. A strong finish at Texas Motor Speedway and the leadership of a new crew chief has got the Benchmark Mortgage team on cloud nine.

“To finish 23rd is great,” said crew chief Kevin Caldwell.

Richardson is an 2004 alumnus of SMU, and is in his first full season of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series racing.

Caldwell is Richardson’s fourth crew chief this season, but according to Caldwell, things are looking up for the team and Friday’s performance at TMS proved it.

Richardson call TMS his home track and being comfortable here could have only helped him get his best finish of the season.

It wasn’t a perfect night for Richardson, but it was an improvement.

The team normally has the pit crew from the No. 64 team in the Busch Series pit their car, but because the Busch series is racing in Nashville, Tenn. this weekend, they were unavailable. Instead Caldwell had to round up a pit crew when the team got to the track. The crew, having never worked together, caused Richardson to lose spots on every pit stop.

The No. 64 team is owned by former NEXTEL Cup driver Rusty Wallace and is driven by Wallace’s son, Steven, and Cup regular Jamie McMurray.

“The pit crew wasn’t all the greatest in the world, but we tried to make up for it with the truck,” Richardson said.

Richardson started the race 32nd and worked his way up to 16th, before eventually coming in 23rd.

Caldwell said the finish was a morale booster for the team. He added while his crew is small, (less than 10 full-time employees) they are a tight knit group and every improvement the team experiences rallies them around their driver.

“It’s not hard to pump my guys up; those guys [bigger truck teams] have bigger morale problems,” Caldwell said.

The team is getting ready to get an even bigger boost next week. According to Caldwell, he has been in discussions with General Motors, and they are going to begin helping the team with technical support.

The support is contingent upon Richardson exclusively running the Chevrolet Silverado body. The team has been switching between Dodges and Chevys depending on the track they are racing on.

“We’re cutting up our Dodges on Monday,” Caldwell said.

The main difference between the different makes of cars is in their nose piece, and teams are able to cut off the front half of the car and put a new nose on it so it will have the look of the new body style.

Caldwell was not specific about what sort of technical support the team would receive from GM, but said it would include notes on car setups and help with aerodynamics.

“Any support is better than we got right now,” Richardson said, adding that the team owes it to their sponsors to improve their on-track performance.

Richardson won’t miss driving the Dodges, “that’s fine with me,” he said, “the Dodges run like they have a parachute hanging out of the back of them.”

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will go to Michigan International Speedway next weekend where Richardson will attempt to qualify for the Con-Way Freight 200.