Dickies driver Chad Chaffin worked his way into the top five only 29 laps into the Infineon 200 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.  Chaffin raced in the top 10 showing other teams he was one of the trucks to beat, before he was bumped in the rear while close racing with only 30 laps left in the race.  Chaffin finished the race with a wounded truck in 30th position.

The Dickies driver qualified his No. 18 Dodge in the 10th position.  By lap 29, he had already moved into the fourth spot.  The third caution of the night came out on lap 30 and the driver was ecstatic.  “This truck is sweet!  Don’t change a thing,” Chaffin said.

The Dickies Racing Team pitted on lap 33 performing a timely pit stop and sent the driver back on the track behind others who did not pit in the 10th position.  By lap 60 Chaffin had passed teammate Bobby Hamilton for third.  He raced there until the fifth caution came out.  On lap 71 Chaffin pitted for fresh tires and fuel with only minor adjustments to the Dickies Dodge.  Then Crew Chief Kip McCord sent Chaffin back out to race.

He restarted the race in 11th, once again behind others who did not pit.  By the next caution on lap 81, the team predicted it was time to get a splash of fuel which would allow Chaffin to finish the Infineon 200.  He restarted 31st because the rest of the field did not need gas to finish the race.  Without wasting any time, he took over the 18th position by lap 110.

On lap 120, while Chaffin was racing in the 16th spot, he got bumped in the rear causing damage to the Dickies Dodge.  NASCAR did not throw the caution flag so Chaffin muscled around the 1.5-mile oval trying to finish the race.  Unfortunately Chaffin could not make it the entire race and had to park his No. 18 Dodge on lap 129 on the race track.  He finished the event in the 30th position.

“I couldn’t believe NASCAR didn’t give us a caution there at the end,” Chaffin said.  “We stopped on the track, and that wouldn’t even do it.  I’m going to get my wrist slapped for that, but I just couldn’t believe they didn’t give us a caution with all the damage we had.  Everybody on the team did a great job, and I’m just proud to be a part of it.  Fuel mileage hurt us tonight.  We had to pit when everybody else didn’t, and it hurt Bobby and us both.  I think we could have worked our way back up through there had Geoff Bodine not ran over us.  I really don’t understand why he did that.  It wasn’t like we were racing for position. We were wounded and he just flat ran over me.”

Dennis Setzer won the Infineon 200.  Carl Edwards, David Starr, Kevin Harvick and Michael Waltrip followed in the top five.