June 23, 2003

Engine Failure Ends a Promising Day for Chad Chaffin

Chad Chaffin began the O’Reilly 200 with hopes of a chance to improve on his career best finish of 3rd place, but an engine failure 76 laps into the event ended his great weekend.

“It just blew up,” said |Chaffin. “That’s all you can say. We had an awesome truck this weekend. We were fast off the transporter, and I think we had a truck capable of winning the race. We had just pitted for fuel only, saving our tires for the end of the race, and it was still great. I could run just about anywhere I wanted. We would have been in the thick of things had the engine not blown. This is one of those things that has just not happened to us. We’ve not had a problem all year with any of our engines. Arrington Engineering has done us a great job, so the only thing I can think it might be is just a bad part.”

Chaffin and the No. 18 Dickies Dodge team began the event from a season high second place starting spot, missing the pole by a mere two one-hundredths of a second. It was a career best start for Chaffin since joining the Truck Series.

When the race started, Chaffin fell to third position, but it did not take long for him and the second place driver, Jon Wood, to start swapping positions. They traded spots several times in the first 55 laps of the race. It was on the fifth caution of the day that Chaffin dived onto pit road for fuel only and a wedge adjustment. The Dickies Team performed the service and returned Chaffin to the track in the second position. But on the restart, Chaffin fell back to the tenth position due to the fact that everyone else had changed tires. This was planned though. The team had studied Chaffin’s tire wear the day before and figured if they could get 80 to 100 laps on the tires, then they would have new tires at the end of the race and no one else would.

Unfortunately, the plan only worked for 21 more laps, and on lap 76, Chaffin slowed on the back straight away and then erupted into smoke off turns three and four. When Chaffin pulled the No. 18 truck into the garage, oil and water were pouring out of the engine and exhaust pipes.

“What can you say,” said Chaffin. “We’ll just load up and go to Milwaukee and try and get back to the front.”

The engine failure resulted in a 28th place finish, which dropped the team two positions to 11th place in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points standings.

Race-by-Race Run Down:
Location Start Finish Laps Status Money Won
Daytona 6 17 103 of 106 Running $ 13,015
Darlington 7 5 147 of 147 Running 9,175
Bakersfield 27 20 253 of 255 Running 5,665
Martinsville 23 26 245 of 250 Out of Gas 6,865
Charlotte 10 8 136 of 136 Running 11,075
Dover 12 7 200 of 200 Running 15,375
Texas 10 8 167 of 167 Running 13,900
Memphis 2 28 76 of 200 Engine 8,940
Milwaukee (Next Event)
Totals 1327 of 1461 (90.8%) $ 84,010