October 19, 2003

Chaffin Battles for 14th in Martinsville

Dickies driver Chad Chaffin fought a loose race truck in today’s Advance Auto Parts 200 at Martinsville Speedway. Despite Chaffin’s spin in the final eight laps of the race he battled back to finish the event in 14th position.

From the very beginning of the race Chaffin told Crew Chief Danny Rollins that his Dickies Dodge was loose. Around lap 35 Chaffin got pushed up the race track by Ken Schrader and had trouble regaining his rhythm in a loose race truck for the next several laps. While the Dickies driver backed off the accelerator trying to clean off his tires from the rubble he picked up in the high groove, he fell back to 14th by lap 49.

Chaffin got his wish to tighten the No. 18 Dodge up when the first caution came out on lap 56. Rollins told his crew members to change only two tires and make an adjustment to the track bar. The Dickies Racing Team performed a timely pit stop and sent Chaffin back on the track in the seventh spot.

In the next 50 laps, the two-tire change helped Chaffin a little, but it was difficult for him to compete with trucks that had a fresh four-tire change. The second caution of the day came out on lap 113 and Chaffin said, “I’m tight in the middle, but loose coming off the turns. The forward bite that we had in practice doesn’t feel the same way today.”

This time the Dickies Racing Team changed all four tires on the No. 18 Dodge and put a round of wedge in the truck. By the third caution on lap 147, Chaffin was having a hard time turning the truck in the corners. Rollins reminded his driver in the final laps of the Advance Auto Parts 200 things could get rough.

Chaffin proved he could hold his own on the .526-mile oval and quickly started to pick up positions. By lap 153 he was in 11th. He held this position until he tangled with David Starr and Andy Petree on lap 192, with only eight laps left in the race. Chaffin did an outstanding job to keep his truck off the wall and was able to bring his Dickies Dodge home without a scratch in 14th position.

“We came off of turn two and Andy (Petree) and I had been side by side for about two laps. In front of us, Ted (Musgrave) and David (Starr) got together and it created enough room that maybe two trucks could go around them at the same time. Well, there wasn’t enough room. Andy was going to put me up in the turn three cheap seats, so I slammed on the brakes. We hit and I spun out, then he spun. I wished he hadn’t done that because it cost me some spots, but that is part of racing here in Martinsville.

“We started out the race fairly strong,” Chaffin said. “After Bobby (Hamilton) caught me I just systematically lost a position about every six or seven laps. We fell back to 14th and from that point on we just weren’t good enough to get positions back. We probably had a seventh or eighth place truck and we didn’t finish there, but we did the best we could. It was a lead lap finish, so all in all it was a good day for the Dickies Dodge.”

Jon Wood won the Advance Auto Parts 200 in Martinsville. Carl Edwards, Dennis Setzer, Rick Crawford and Bobby Hamilton followed in the top five.

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