Firebird International Raceway – Saturday October 7, 2006

Chad had a full day and night of racing scheduled for Saturday, October 7th. The day started out early with the ASA SpeedTruck practice, qualifying and a timed 40-minute road course race at Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix.

Chad’s practice session had a few anxious moments. He had a vibration in the truck and about halfway into the practice session, he had some smoke in the cockpit, so he pulled the truck off the track. He had to wait until the session was over before a push truck could get him back to the pits so that the crew could get to work and find out what caused the smoke and the vibration and make repairs before his qualifying group was scheduled to run. The crew found the problems and Chad posted a qualifying lap good enough for the 9th spot. Chad didn’t get the luck of the pill draw, because they rolled an 8 for the inversion, so instead of getting to start on the pole, Chad had to start in the 5th row.

Since the race was a timed 40-minute race, Chad didn’t have any time to waste in getting to the front. Chad quickly moved into the top five by the end of the first lap on the 1.8-mile road course. He continued to gain on the leaders, but the #35 truck got into the back of Chad and spun him out. Chad kept the truck running, but had to wait until it was safe to pull back on the track, causing him to lose several positions. He steadily started working his way through the field, and even with no full course yellows, and losing 1st gear halfway through the race, Chad took the checkered flag in the 5th position.