With a bright, full moon in the sky, Chad made his sprint car debut with the Arizona Sprint Car Association on Saturday night on Manzanita Speedway’s 1/3 mile track. After several nights of practice in the sprint car, Chad and the crew felt confident that Chad was ready to move up to the higher horsepower 360 sprint car division.

Windy McDonald, the track announcer, wrote “The youngster, son of former Indy driver Billy Boat, has set the racing community on its ear with his performance in Mini Sprints and Midgets and his debut in the ASCA sprints did not disappoint the crowd that cheered him on. Granted, he did not make the main event, but that was secondary. As a rookie, he had to tag the field in both his heat and in the semi. He almost made the feature through his heat with a close fifth place finish behind four drivers with a combined 16 main event wins – Sherman, High, Ream, Jr. and Bonneau.”

With 33 sprint cars signing into the pits, and only 16 transferring from the heat races, Chad had his work cut out in the semi. As Windy stated, “The real show came in the 12-lap semi. The eighth grade student started last in the 15 car field and showed his ability, daring and lightning quick reflexes as he missed qualifying for the main by just one position. He finished fifth and passed two top ten drivers and a former three time Arizona state champion on his way toward the front for one of the best rookie debuts ever.”