Dickies driver Chad Chaffin finished ninth, logging his third top 10 in a row, in the O’Reilly 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park.

Chaffin started the race in the ninth position and by lap 81, he had moved into the eighth spot running times that were as fast as the leaders.  The second caution of the day came out on lap 100 and Chaffin asked his Crew Chief Kip McCord to free up his Dickies Dodge on the center of the turns.  “I’m loose coming off the corners because I’m so tight in the middle of them,” Chaffin said.  “It’s hard to pass right now; nobody is coming off the bottom of the race track.  The top groove just hasn’t come in yet.”

The only time Chaffin pitted in the 200-lap event was on lap 103.  The Dickies Racing Team made an adjustment to the track bar and air pressures in the tires.  By lap 125 Chaffin told his crew chief that the No. 18 Dodge was turning better, but still needed more forward bite. McCord gave his driver some encouragement saying, “It should come to you right there when some of the fuel burns off.”

By lap 148 for the fifth caution, Chaffin was still in the top 10.  Although he was a little loose he held the wheel straight and fought off advances by Rick Crawford.  Chaffin’s truck proved to be a long-run charger, something that would have worked in the first 100 laps of the race where there was only two cautions.  The final 100 laps showed seven more cautions, but Chaffin held his own in the top 10.

“Every time my truck gets going after these restarts, they throw a caution flag,” Chaffin said.  “It takes me a few laps to get around this lap traffic and by then my truck is going good.  Then it seems like they throw a caution for something happening every time.”

Chaffin was in 10th place when the eighth caution came out on lap 185.  For the restart, his spotter, Jerry Adcock, told him, “It’s on bud, tighten those belts.”  Adcock was warning his driver of late-race accidents when people race for the checkered flag and make mistakes.  He was right.  The ninth and final caution came out two laps later.  The final restart happened on lap 196 and Chaffin passed David Starr to take over the ninth spot in the O’Reilly 200 at Memphis.

“We were a little loose coming off the corner all day,” Chaffin said.  “The first pit stop we made adjustments because we were tight and then it made us a loose for the rest of the race.  The Dickies Dodge was handling good, but not like we thought it would.  The race was all about track position.  I could run right there with them, but it was so hard to pass.  Memphis usually opens up into two lanes, but it seemed like this time everybody protected the bottom.  We had a little problem in the pits and came out 15th, after that the race never went long enough for us to move back up.  There was caution after caution.  I think we had a fourth or fifth-place truck; it is just hard to make it up when the bottom groove was the only place to race.  A top-10 finish is good, but we expected more.  That shows you how good our team is right now when a ninth-place finish is a little disappointing.”

Chaffin’s teammate Bobby Hamilton won the O’Reilly 200.  Shane Hmiel, Ted Musgrave, Dennis Setzer and Carl Edwards followed in the top five.