By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
CONCORD, N.C. – Chad Finley looked to gain a top-10 finish in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway; however, a late race restart cost the driver that strong finish.
On the final restart of the race, Finley lined his No. 42 Truck behind Johnny Sauter. When the green flag unfurled, Sauter’s truck shut off and Finley was hooked on his right rear with no way to get off his bumper.
For Finley and his team, running up front with the top teams in the series means a lot. Although some things did not go the way, Finley’s spirts were not dampened.
“It means a lot,” Finley said. “These guys work hard on the truck. I think we ran up to seventh or eighth. It is where we should have finished, but we had some bad luck there at the end. We ran out of fuel at the end of segment two. We had a lot of things not go our way. We were up there in the top 10 anyways because of it. We will move onto our next.”
For the No. 42, a solid run at Charlotte was a boost of confidence following an incident earlier this year at Atlanta Motor Speedway where the hauler attempted to exit the speedway through the wrong entrance.
Although the teams 2019 plans didn’t go as planned, the team kept their heads up and on the grind.
“All you can do is keep working,” he said. “That’s what all of us do. That is all any of us know how to do. I think we get our semi back here in a couple of weeks. We went and looked at it the other day. We had to get a new tractor.
“We fixed the trucks up. They weren’t too bad. Obviously, the Atlanta truck was pretty torn up. Everybody is positive still. This is good for us here tonight. I that we didn’t end up where we should’ve.”
The next race for Finley will be at Iowa Speedway next month.