20th Place Finish After Great Start for McCumbee

November 6th, Texas Motor Speedway - The WinStar World Casino 300 looked to be a promising race for the No. 07 tiwi/Valvoline Fuel Proof Guarantee Chevrolet until a tire vibration forced Chad McCumbee to pit road for an unscheduled pit stop with 32 laps to go. In the final laps, McCumbee was able to fight back to a 20th place finish, his 11th top-20 finish in 18 starts this season.

McCumbee started the 147-lap race from the 3rd position after qualifying around the mile and a half speedway in 30.30 seconds with an average speed of 178.2 mph. At the drop of the green flag, Chad raced hard with Matt Crafton, Todd Bodine and Ron Hornaday and settled the tiwi/Valvoline Fuel Proof Guarantee No. 07 Chevy into the fourth spot where he stayed until lap 15.

He reported to the SS Green Light crew that he was “Struggling with overall grip and loose center-off.” The SS Green Light Racing pit crew worked to remedy the ill-handling truck in the first couple of pit stops of the night.

By the halfway point in the race, McCumbee was battling for 12th position when he radioed the crew with the first indications of a worn right front tire. “I think I ran the right front (tire) off on those first few laps,” McCumbee radioed to crew chief Bobby Dotter.

On the ensuing yellow flag pit stop, fuel was added to the truck but Dotter elected to save the team’s last set of ‘sticker’ tires for the closing laps of the race. McCumbee restarted in the lead but was quickly passed by trucks with four fresh Goodyear tires. Only 22 laps later McCumbee was forced to pit road for an unscheduled pit stop to replace the severely worn right front tire on his tiwi/Valvoline Fuel Proof Guarantee Chevrolet.

Now two laps down to the leaders, the SS Green Light Racing team was relegated to a 20th place finish. “We didn’t come here to run second so we had to take that chance and try to save our tires for the end of the race,” McCumbee said after the race. “Unfortunately, that strategy didn’t work for us tonight.”

“That was a disappointing finish and we were trying our hardest to have a good run for all of the tiwi and Valvoline folks that are here with us tonight to launch their new Fuel Proof Guarantee. We are so excited to have them on board the No. 07 Chevrolet for the rest of the season and we’ll give them another shot at a good finish at Phoenix and Homested.”