Square D driver Bobby Hamilton led the most laps before finishing second in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday. His fourth top-five finish helped Hamilton close the gap in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points battle to leader Dennis Setzer, who he is only trailing by 61 points.
Qualifying and practice was cancelled due to rain all day on Friday. NASCAR allowed teams to have only 30 minutes of practice on Saturday morning before the race began. Hamilton was fastest on the charts right off the truck. The Square D Racing Team tried a few different springs in practice before settling on their starting setup. The lineup was set according to points, so Hamilton rolled off the grid in third.
By the time he drove around the 1.5-mile oval one time he was the leader. He held this position sailing away in front of the field until the third caution on lap 28. At this time Hamilton and his Crew Chief Danny Rollins decided it was time to pit. Hamilton wanted a minor adjustment to help free his Dodge up off the corners. The Square D Racing Team performed a timely pit stop making a track bar adjustment and placing four scuffed Goodyear Eagles on the No. 4 Dodge. Hamilton restarted on lap 32 in fifth, behind trucks that did not pit.
Hamilton remained around the top five for the next 50 laps until the fifth caution came out. Rollins called his driver onto pit road on lap 81 for four fresh tires and 22 gallons of Sunoco fuel. The Square D Racing Team cranked out a fast pit stop helping Hamilton pick up three spots to restart the race in second. Two laps later he was leading the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 again.
The sixth caution came out on lap 101 and Hamilton was really close to his pit window for gas. Trying to save his last set of tires until the final laps, Rollins called Hamilton in for fuel only. The team restarted on lap 106 in second. Under the eighth caution on lap 120 Hamilton pitted for the final time of the race. He and driver Carl Edwards were the only two teams amongst the leaders who chose to pit at this time. Hamilton restarted on lap 122 in the 11th position.
11 laps later, he was fifth. Then the ninth caution came out on lap 146. Jon Wood pitted allowing Hamilton to move up one spot to fourth for the restart on lap 153. Hamilton quickly picked up two more spots passing Steve Park and Rick Crawford to finish the race in second.
“The guys just keep ticking along,” Hamilton said of his second-place finish. “This stuff is pretty easy to go when you have good people. The Square D Dodge unloaded fast. We only had 30 minutes of practice and we made some changes that made us run good all day. That last set of tires was a little too tight for us. I didn’t have any hope to win except to try different parts of the racetrack. I would try a couple of different grooves and have a couple of fast laps. Then I would run a different groove and it would slow down. I’ve been doing this stuff long enough to know with seven laps to go that I wasn’t going to catch him. But you have to keep running hard in case he hits oil or something breaks in his truck. Carl (Edwards) did a great job. I noticed that his front fender was pulled up really big in the front, so anytime you wreck and you get that bigger fender it always helps. We’ll take second and the points we picked up on Setzer and go to Kentucky.”
Carl Edwards won the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway. Hamilton, Rick Crawford, Steve Park and Matt Crafton followed in the top five.
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