June 23, 2003

Square D Racing Recap: O’Reilly 200
 
For the third time this season, Square D driver Bobby Hamilton finished in seventh position. His finish in the O’Reilly’s 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park kept the streak of top 10 finishes, leading every race so far and completing 100% of the laps alive. Hamilton extended his points lead in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship by 84 points over new second place point contender Travis Kvapil.

Driving the truck nicknamed the King, Hamilton maintained his spot in the sixth position with lap times that were only one-hundredth-of-a-second off of leader Ted Musgrave. When the fourth caution came out on lap 54, Hamilton radioed to his crew chief Newt Moore he was a little free off the corners.

During this caution most of the drivers in the top 10 decided to pit. Hamilton and Moore decided it was best to stay out for track position and five bonus points for leading the race. The duo agreed to use some pit strategy in efforts to get ahead. If everything went according to the plan, they would pit around lap 100 and it would make them out of sequence with the rest of the field.

Following the restart on lap 59, Hamilton held his own on the race track despite the fresh tires behind him. He fell to eighth position by the time the fifth caution came out on lap 77 when Chad Chaffin, Hamilton’s teammate, blew an engine. Even though it was a few laps shy of the pit window, Moore did not want to take any chances. He called Hamilton into the pits for tires and fuel on lap 78. Hamilton went back on the .75-mile oval in 15th position.

By lap 82 he was already in 10th and his lap times were faster than the leader who he was catching fast. On lap 121 Hamilton took over the eighth spot from Brendan Gaughan. Just a three laps later the seventh caution came out. Hamilton and Moore decided if the leaders pitted, Hamilton would too. Sure enough he came in for his final stop of the day on lap 126. The Square D Racing Team cranked out a fast pit stop allowing Hamilton to take over the seventh position for the restart on lap 130.

In only seven laps Hamilton had moved up to fourth position. He held this spot for several laps when he started to slowly fall back through the field. Moore radioed his driver and asked if anything was wrong with the truck. Hamilton replied that he thought he had a tire going down, so he was trying to preserve the truck for a top 10 finish. Hamilton crossed the finish line in seventh position without a scratch on the “King.”

“It was actually a pretty clean day,” Hamilton said. “We started pushing there at the end. I knew we were really hard on the right front tire, so I elected to back off. We are the points leader and we have to keep that in mind every race. We have a good string of finishes going. We haven’t finished out the top 10, we’ve led every race and completed 100% of the laps. So we’ll take it and go to the next one.”

Ted Musgrave won the O’Reilly’s 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park. Travis Kvapil, Dennis Setzer, Jon Wood and Carl Edwards followed in the top five.