The Square D Racing Team made major changes before the start of the O’Reilly 400K at Texas Motor Speedway. The changes paid off for Hamilton’s team as they notched their fourth top-10 this season when they finished the race in seventh. Early on the morning of the race, Hamilton, his Crew Chief Danny Rollins and Team Engineer Jeff White all met to discuss the setup on the No. 4 Dodge Ram. The three decided after reviewing notes from Happy-Hour practice that they needed major changes to chassis, springs and shocks to ensure a top-10 finish. Hamilton started the night race in 12th position. He made a pact with Rollins that once the race started he would fall back to stay out of trouble and see what his Dodge was capable of doing. By lap 14, Hamilton was 23rd. The first caution came out on lap 20 and the driver asked Rollins to make an adjustment because his Square D Dodge was loose in the middle and tight off turn two. Hamilton pitted for fuel and the team made an adjustment to the track bar, but they did not change tires. The best set of Goodyear Eagles was being saved for the last pit stop of the race. The restart came on lap 26 and Hamilton was 11th. He fell back to 16th position by the second caution on lap 28. Then he radioed into his crew. “You guys don’t get down out there in the pits,” Hamilton said. “I am better, by far a lot better, than what I am showing out here.” The team sighed in relief. Hamilton radioed on lap 58 under green-flag-racing conditions that his truck was getting tight off the turns. The truck was halfway through a fuel run, and it was doing exactly what the team had predicted. So under caution on lap 74 the Square D Racing Team adjusted the track bar to where it was when the race started. The 167-lap race restarted on lap 78 with Hamilton 10th. Since the truck was loose until some of the fuel burned off, he fell back a few positions to 15th by lap 86. He held this spot until a green-flag pit stop on lap 134. The Square D Racing Team cranked out a fast stop and sent Hamilton back on the race track in ninth position. In the final laps the Tennessee native didn’t hold back. He passed two more trucks to finish the race in the seventh spot. The top-10 finish helped him close the gap in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points race. He is still fifth, only 40 points behind Mike Skinner in fourth. “Our truck was really bad in Happy Hour yesterday,” Hamilton said. “The engineer and the crew chief got together with me and we changed everything thing under the truck that moves for the race. We had a plan just to ride around and take care of tires, then get after it at the end. We, speed-wise, were about a sixth-place truck but didn’t have enough time there at the end to get that position. So we’re really happy with a top ten. We made chicken salad out of chicken scratch.” Dennis Setzer won the O’Reilly 400K. Ted Musgrave, David Reutimann, Jack Sprague and Hamilton’s teammate Chad Chaffin followed in the top five.
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