June 6, 2003

Square D Racing Recap O’Reilly’s 400K

Square D driver Bobby Hamilton had a stellar performance tonight at Texas Motor Speedway finishing seventh in the O’Reilly’s 400K. Hamilton led the most laps in the 167-lap race and extended his points lead over driver Rick Crawford by 73 points.

The Square D driver was granted the pole starting position when inclement weather cancelled qualifying on Thursday. Hamilton fell to second in the first few laps to Crawford, but took the lead on lap four until lap 38. During this time he radioed to his crew chief Newt Moore that he was a little tight from the middle of the corner off.

Four laps before the driver was scheduled to pit under green-flag conditions, the first caution of the day came out on lap 54 for debris in turn two. Hamilton pitted on lap 56 for four scuffed tires and the crew made a track bar adjustment. Although he went back on the track in fourth position, he quickly made his way back to the front by lap 63.

At this point the Tennessee native was pulling away from the rest of the field. Hamilton held the lead at the halfway point of the race and lost it on lap 98 to the eventual race winner, Brendan Gaughan.

On lap 99 the second caution came out for a spin in turn two. Hamilton pitted on lap 100 for tires and fuel. At this point gas man Mike Goins began to calculate the fuel mileage. He told Moore that the mileage would be to the wire unless we got another caution so Hamilton could preserve fuel.

Sure enough on lap 119 another caution came out with Hamilton as the leader. During this time Hamilton coasted around the track as his crew chief and gas man calculated what it would take to finish the race without any more fuel.

On the restart, Hamilton was trying to hold his position and watch the gas. By lap 144 he fell to third. Another caution came out on lap 148 and Hamilton radioed to his crew chief saying, “Can I make it from here? I am pretty tight right now so I will probably lose another couple of positions.” Moore replied to his driver, “It’s not worth the gamble to even worry about it. Let’s bring you in here and make an adjustment to your track bar and add about six gallons of fuel.” On lap 150 Hamilton pitted for just that.

With only 15 laps to go in the race, Hamilton restarted in 11th position. He picked up three spots in five laps to eighth. On the white flag lap he battled with teammate Chad Chaffin and took over the seventh position in time to cross the finish line.

“Our team looked beat up after the race was over,” Hamilton said. “I think we did the smartest, best thing for our goal. We shouldn’t be upset after our finish tonight. We have not put a single scratch on any of our trucks this year. We’ve completed and led laps in every race, and we extended our points lead even further after tonight’s race. It’s great that my crew members want to be that competitive, but we have not finished out of the top 10 all year and five of our finishes have been in the top five. That says a lot for our team. I’m proud to drive this Square D Dodge.”

Brendan Gaughan won the O’Reilly’s 400K making it his third-straight win at Texas Motor Speedway. Carl Edwards, Jon Wood, Travis Kvapil and Dennis Setzer followed in the top five.