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Dirt Inc.
Chassis - Maxim
Engines -
Driver - Chad
Hillier
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Hillier Races into 11th Place in Oil City
Cup Opener
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA (August 17) – Feeling
the pressure from a fellow Kevin Gobrecht Rookie
of the Year contender, Chad Hillier put together the second-best performance
of his World of Outlaws career Friday on opening night of the Oil City Cup at Castrol Raceway.
Hillier, who entered
the double-feature event one point ahead of Sam Hafertepe
Jr., drove the #5C DIRT Inc. Maxim into 11th place in the “A”
Feature to gain a 25-point lead in the battle for 19th place in
the World of Outlaws standings.
The only driver to win
all three sprint car championships at Skagit Speedway was fast from the
beginning, recording the 14th-fastest qualifying lap in the
36-car field. Hilllier’s 101.588-MPH lap around
the semi-banked, 3/8-mile oval was only .414 seconds off the pace set by
former Selma Shell Racing teammate Paul McMahan. The outstanding qualifying
lap gave Hillier the luxury of starting on the pole in the Second Heat
Race.
“We could have been a
little bit better, but I was the last one out (in the qualifying session),”
Chad
said. “We still managed to get into the inversion, so that was really good.
We were actually in a perfect spot because it put us on the front row of a
heat race. That’s where you needed to be because there wasn’t a whole lot
of passing going on.”
Starting inside the
second row in the Crane Cams Dash, Hillier was poised to earn a front-row
starting position in the 35-lap “A” Feature.
“We had a good starting
position in the dash, but Hafertepe got sideways
on the front stretch and drove into the side of us,” Chad said.
“By the time we gathered it up and got into the first turn, we were in
eighth place. That was frustrating, but at least we started the feature in
the first five rows.”
Finishing ninth in the
dash allowed Hillier to start inside the fifth row in the main event.
Unfortunately, a hole in the #5C’s right rear tire hampered Hillier’s
progress.
“We were good in the
feature when we could get up to speed, but there were so many cautions,” Chad said.
“We were really tight on the restarts, and we got a hole in the right rear
(soon after the last red period). The car was really good up to that point
but, after that, it got tighter and tighter. It got down on air pressure on
the caution laps, but it wasn’t too bad when we could get some laps on it.
After the last restart, it was tight for about four laps before it started
loosening up. It wasn’t completely flat; we came in with seven pounds in
it. If we hadn’t had some of those cautions, we would have been better off.
At the start, we were getting around there pretty good. On restarts, it
just got too tight after we got the hole in the tire.
“It might have helped
that we raced there before. The shape of the racetrack was good for us, and
we had run in that rough stuff over the years. It was a (Jac) Haudenschild-type track:
the harder you ran the cushion, the better off you would be.
“Our motor ran well all
night, and we caught the breaks. There have been nights when I ran 20th
and probably had a fifth-place car, but we didn’t have a good starting
position. Our guys (Pete Stephens, Curtis Bye and Travis Van Dam) did a
good job. It just boiled down to getting in the dash and getting a good
starting spot in the feature.”
Hillier and DIRT Inc.
will return to Castrol Raceway Saturday for the
final night of the Oil City
Cup, then head to Chad’s home track – Skagit Speedway in Alger, WA – for a
double-feature event August 24-25.
DeWitt Industries
Racing Team Incorporated invites racing fans to visit its website at www.dirt-inc.com for news, results, sponsorship information and
photographs. The team is sponsored by Jansma
Construction, H.B. Jaeger, Fast Wings, Maxim Chassis, Pro Shocks and Weld
Racing.
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