KNOXVILLE, TN :: Chad Finchum performed a clean sweep on the weekend, scoring two victories at Kingsport Speedway on Friday night and then picking up two more at Lonesome Pine Raceway on Saturday. The perfect weekend was something Finchum had been hoping to do ever since adding Lonesome Pine to his race schedule.
“We been struggling and been trying to get this since March and we finally did it,” Finchum said. “I’m happy, I really am. We’ve had weekends where we’ve won both at one or the other and something went wrong in that last race. We’ll be sitting on three wins and something will get in our way and couldn’t get our fourth. We’ve been trying so hard to get that weekend sweep and this was our time.”
Finchum’s weekend started with a third place start at Kingsport after qualifying was rained out and the field was set by points and then a four car inversion was applied. He made quick work of getting to the lead to score the victory, his fourth consecutive win at “The Concrete Jungle”. A four car inversion for the second race put him to the fourth position for the start of the race and he once again worked his way to the lead quickly to score his fifth consecutive win at Kingsport.
“We went there and I couldn’t have asked for a better car at Kingsport,” Finchum stated. “The car was really perfect. Kingsport was just awesome. It was a dream night.”
Finchum’s day at Lonesome Pine was a bit more challenging. The team practiced on the car and couldn’t get a handle on the track in the heat of the day. Finchum qualified in fourth position but pulled off to make an adjustment prior to the start of the race and started at the rear.
“We came to Lonesome Pine, it’s hot, it’s hot outside and it’s hard to dial in a car for night in day,” Finchum explained. “We practiced and the car wasn’t handling. We threw a big swing at it in qualifying. We went big. We picked up some time but we killed the handling so I made the decision that we should try a line and make adjustments, come from the back to the front.”
During the race, Finchum discovered that the car was hooked up when he ran the outside line, where nobody else was able to run, and was able to race to the front of the field. In the second race, Finchum again raced his way to the lead from the fourth position on the top of the track to complete the sweep.
“We didn’t have the car we wanted. I had to run the top all night and it worked, we just drove by them on the outside in both races. The outside worked for us all night. We practiced and qualified on the bottom. We got up front and never looked back the whole race.”
Finchum’s win total added up to 16 with his four wins over the weekend and he continues to hold the points lead at Lonesome Pine. Finchum will be back in action on Friday night, September 5th at Kingsport Speedway and Saturday night, September 6th at Lonesome Pine Raceway.
