February 17, 2003

No. 18 Team’s Chance at a Three Peat at Daytona Spun Away in Turn Two after Blown Tire

Chad Chaffin entered the season opener at Daytona with high hopes and a rejuvenated career with the No. 18 Dickies BHR Dodge, but a blown tire and spin finally ended the team’s hopes late in the running of the Daytona 250.

Chaffin started the race from a career best sixth position, after turning in a great lap in qualifying on Tuesday. But right from the start, Chaffin began to get a little loose in the draft. So he found a place to run that would keep him with the leaders, but not in danger of crashing out early before the team had a chance to work on the truck. That chance came just 29 laps into the race, when the caution flew. The next lap, Chaffin entered pit road for service. The team changed tires and added fuel, before returning the No. 18 truck to the race. A small miscue in the pits cost the team a few positions on the restart, but it was not a great concern this early in the race.

When the race restarted, on lap 34, Chaffin began racing his way back to the front, but the truck began to get very tight off the turns. This was a mystery to the team as they did not make a major chassis adjustment. Fortunately, the caution came out again on lap 41, and the team was able to talk about what the problem was. On the ensuing restart, Chaffin began racing his heart out, and after just ten laps, he was in fourth position, but just as fast as he got up to the leaders, several trucks drove under him and Chaffin was left on the outside with no drafting partners. Chaffin was shuffled back to around tenth place where he raced for the next 30 laps or so.

On lap 75, Chaffin was forced to come to pit road and get fuel and right side tires under green. Unfortunately for the team, two laps after their stop under green the caution flew putting them one lap down. Then, as they say the hits just kept on coming. Not only did Chaffin and the team lose a lap because of the green flag stop, and subsequent caution, but on the restart, while exiting turn two, the right rear tire blew out sending the No. 18 truck spinning. This brought out the caution again and also dropped Chaffin a second lap down.

The team made several pit stops to repair the damage and get Chaffin back out on the track to finish the race in the 17th position.

“Man when it’s not your day it’s not your day, said Chaffin. “We just had a bad race. We made a few adjustments during the race, but we just never got it running in the draft. Then when the tire got cut down, and I spun, it damaged just about everything under the truck it could. The guys got me back out, but all we could do is just ride around to the finish. We’ll get them in Darlington. I like the place and I feel like we should be pretty good there.”

Following the race, the crew found that the left front spring had come out of position under a pit stop, and that was the cause of the chassis problems.

“It’s one of those things that never happens,” said crew chief Randy Seals. “I can’t tell you how seldom something like this happens. I just fell badly for Chad and the guys not to mention everyone associated with the team. We had a top ten truck before that happened so all we can take from this race is that we had a fast truck.”

Driver: Chad Chaffin, No. 18 Dickies Dodge Team
Starts Pole Wins Top Fives Top Tens Earnings Points Position
1 0 0 0 0 $ 13,015 17th

Race-by-Race Run Down:
Location Start Finish Laps Status Money Won
Daytona 6 17 103 of 106 Running $ 13,015
Darlington (Next Event)
Totals 103 of 106 (97.2%) $ 13,015

NEXT EVENT: Craftsman 200 at Darlington Speedway in Darlington, South Carolina on March 14, 2003. The event will be televised live on SPEED Channel at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.