After leading 26 laps in tonight’s Black Cat Fireworks 200 at the Milwaukee Mile Square D driver Bobby Hamilton finished the race in the sixth position.  The third consecutive top-ten finish enabled Hamilton to close the gap on Carl Edwards in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points race.  He is third, only 22 points behind second.

Hamilton qualified earlier in the day in the third starting position.  After battling door-to-door with Ted Musgrave for the lead for several laps, Hamilton took over the position on lap 22.  He relinquished the lead on lap 48 and radioed to his Crew Chief Danny Rollins that he was tight in the middle and off the turns.  The first caution came out on lap 59 and Rollins told the team to take one round of cross out of the Square D Dodge and adjust the air pressures in his tires.  The team cranked out a fast pit stop enabling Hamilton to restart the race on lap 65 in third.

Halfway through the race the third caution came out on lap 100.  Hamilton told Rollins his truck was doing the same thing it had done in Memphis (last race), but it wasn’t as bad.  The team discussed the track bar changes they did in the last race and adjusted accordingly the next stop.  He restarted the race on lap 107 on his last set of fresh tires in the fourth position.

Then cautions bred cautions.  It was one right after another.  If the race kept this up, Hamilton could gamble with fuel mileage until the end of the 200-lap event, but the team did not want to get caught with its hands tied.  So during the fifth caution, Hamilton pitted on lap 127 for fuel only.  The team elected not to change tires since his current set only had nine green-flag racing laps on them.

He restarted the race in 16th on lap 133.  Since the lap traffic was still able to line-up beside the leaders there was a messy cluster of trucks that held him back for several laps.  Despite the hold up, by lap 157 Hamilton was 10th.  He radioed to Rollins, “This truck is a different truck in all this dirty air and these old tires.  It doesn’t even drive the same until I get around these trucks.”

By lap 193 Hamilton had moved up to seventh.  Then the eighth and final caution came out on lap 198 when the 15 truck of Shane Hmiel was spun racing for fourth position.  The NCTS fan-friendly ending of the green-white-checkered rule brought the spectators to their feet.  The Black Cat Fireworks 200 was restarted on lap 203 and Hamilton made three more circuits to finish the race in sixth, his sixth top 10 in only nine races this season.

“We had a great truck all night,” Hamilton said.  “Pit strategy bit us a little bit, but we still ended up with a top-10 finish.  Once my truck got in the dirty air back behind all the lap traffic, it was a total different machine.  I led several laps and got the five extra points, which will help us in the long run.  I’m proud of this team; we’ve had a lot of great finishes this year.  We just need to keep the momentum going.”

Ted Musgrave won the Black Cat Fireworks 200.  Chad Chaffin, Dennis Setzer, Steve Park and Travis Kvapil followed in the top five.