July 14, 2003

Square D Racing Recap
Built Ford Tough 225

SPARTA, Ky. – A broken right front shock made the Square D Dodge extremely loose and hard to drive for Bobby Hamilton in today’s Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway. Hamilton finished the 150-lap race four laps down in 18th position.

Hamilton was credited with leading the first 11 laps. He pulled away from the rest of the field by 20 truck lengths until he started to drop back quickly. Immediately his crew chief Newt Moore radioed asking what happened. Hamilton said, “There is absolutely no forward bite in this truck right now. I was so close to the wall in turn four I cannot believe I didn’t hit it.” Moore and Hamilton agreed it was in their best interest to stay out to see if the tires would tighten the truck up.

That did not happen. Hamilton pitted under caution on lap 30 for fresh tires, but it still didn’t help. By lap 47 he had fallen back to 18th position, 14 seconds behind the leader. He went a lap down to leader Brendan Gaughan on lap 69.

Then the fourth caution of the night came out on lap 81. At this time Moore was convinced that the left rear chain that holds the tire in place was too tight, thus lifting the tire up when Hamilton drove it off the corner. On lap 83 Hamilton pitted and the Square D Racing Team cut the chain off of the left rear, then they put a rubber in the spring and adjusted four rounds to the track bar. Hamilton went back out on the track to catch up with the leaders and pitted again the following lap so the team could make an adjustment to the left side track bar.

Following the lap 86 restart, Hamilton said it still wasn’t better. “I’m telling you now there is something wrong with the right front. It feels like it just bounces back and forth even under the caution laps.”

He was right. On lap 113 under caution the crew members changed front shocks. Hamilton lost three laps in the pits trying to get some help. Then under the next caution on lap 119, they measured the right front. They found out that the Dodge was 1 ˝ inches too low, thus making Hamilton feel like he was driving a truck with a flat tire.

Immediately after the race, the team tore apart the shocks to find out the right front was broken.

“It started out really good,” Hamilton said. “We had a shock shaft break on the right front which pulled the end out of the shaft. We’re not completely sure what else might have happened. These trucks travel so much with the soft springs that it might have had the shock in a bind and popped the end of it off. Then where we adjusted it so much, it killed the truck all night. I hate that it happened, but we have to put our game face on and get ready to redeem ourselves next weekend.”

Carl Edwards won the Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway. Ted Musgrave, Dennis Setzer, Jon Wood and Jason Leffler followed in the top