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Really Close at the Rock... | More >> | 2004 Recap Archive | 2003 Race Archive

Start - 26th | Competitors - 28| High - 1st | Low - 26th | Finish - 18th

Rockingham is a place you can get in trouble fast. Those who are up front in the beginning are almost never up front at the end. Plain and simple, Rockingham can wear you out. Tire wear is always a factor and using a light touch on the throttle will always reward the driver. The AMSOIL Chevy was up to the challenge. A pre-race review of past races at the Rock indicated that mid pack collisions were common early on and if you survive through three quarter mark of the race then you'll come away with a top ten. Kevin and the team decided to act upon that notion by taking a provisional starting spot and it almost paid off. Read on to find out what happened.

Starting scratch on the field the ECI Express received a better pit stall choice and was positioned to avoid any early race melees. Kevin laid low in the early going and to the teams surprise everyone was well behaved as the yellow cloth only waived sporadically in the early stages. The mid race section however was a different story as caution after caution weeded out several runners and damaged numerous cars throughout the field. Keeping clean Kevin ducked in the pits at every opportunity to keep the car full of fuel and with fresh tires.

At lap 138 of 177 the crew decided to leave Kevin out after a caution and he was able to pick up five valuable championship bonus points for leading a lap. Once that objective was met, it was time to move ahead. On the next caution the crew executed a 13 second two tire stop which resulted in excellent track position. Two more cautions followed and a four tire stop set up the finish. Running 12th, Kevin climbed through the pack and found himself in eighth with 10 to go. The top ten wasn't to be however as with three to go Glenn Brown nudged the AMSOIL Chevy on the entry to turn one and a spin and hard impact resulted. It wasn't intentional and all Kevin could do was limp home to the yellow-checkerd finish; a disappointing 18th.

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Kevin Inglin

"I hate it for the team. Two weeks in a row we were in the hunt for a top ten and it all goes away with less then ten to go. We've raced well and had decent strategy but just couldn't close the deal. We bode our time today and it's unfortunate to go that far and get clipped with three to go. I'm sure it wasn't intentional and just one of them racin' deals but we've been on the short end two weeks in a row now. Glenn's a clean driver and there's no hard feelings. Seems that warp was more to blame then aggressive driving. Sure is a tough start to the season.

Our guys had a couple problems on pit road today. Two air gun jams and a problem with one of the wheels stuck on the hub. I guess it wasn't that detrimental as we were cruising in the back, savin' our stuff. The car felt comfortable but we didn't seem to have as much power as everyone else. Not sure where we're short but feels as if everyone else is just a touch faster this year. Perhaps our connection woes are to blame for the perceived lack of speed. I was so cautious all race. Anyone that got along side, I let them go and gave tons of room. It cost me quite a bit on lap times to yield so much but we stayed clean until that last unfortunate incident.

We have an off week before we head off to Las Vegas. Wide and flat, Las Vegas is my kind of track. Lots of room and everyone seems to behave better there so we're hoping we can put a top five or ten in the books for the year. We can't afford any more of this luck or we're going to be out of the championship hunt after race 26.

We're heading off to Nashville to run the truck race. Our luck over there this year has been about the same. Perhaps we'll get this monkey off our back and show em' what this team is capable of. "