Chad Finchum Looks Ahead After Calling His Shot at Kingsport

Chad Finchum called his shot as if he was Babe Ruth in the 1932 World Series.  He said last week that, if he didn’t have any mechanical failures or wasn’t caught up in a wreck, he would win Saturday’s race at Kingsport Speedway.  He did just that.

Chad Finchum was fastest in practice, set a new track record in qualifying (14.880) and led wire-to-wire to score the victory at the track in Tennessee known affectionately as “the Concrete Jungle”.

“They inverted the top-two after qualifying and that put us on the outside,” Finchum said.  “We got the lead at the start of the race, led every lap and won the race.”

Finchum knew his car was fast after testing there a couple of weeks ago.  Last week, he said the car was fast and that the chemistry between he and his entire crew was the best it has ever been.  That proven winning combination gave Finchum confidence that he would be able to score the victory.

“The reason I said that is that we tested two weeks prior and the lap times we had laid down in testing were better lap times than we’ve ever had there and the car was handling so great,” Finchum said about calling his shot.  “If we had the same car, the track didn’t change and we didn’t have and mechanical failures or get caught up in a wreck, we felt we would have no problem being in contention.  The car was that good.”

Finchum’s competitive spirit has him wanting to go back and race at Kingsport Speedway again on Friday night but he says he and his team are sticking to their original game plan.  That game plan has his team setting their sights on the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown at South Boston Speedway.

“We want to go back to Kingsport.  I have that huge competitive drive in me that we’re leading the points and they’re racing Friday night but we’re sticking to the original plan.  We didn’t tear anything up, didn’t even put a door mark on it.  We’re going to put a setup on it for South Boston and get ready for the Denny Hamlin race.”

Finchum said he and his team have a lot of work to do to get ready for the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown, which will be held on Thursday, April 23^rd.

“We’ve got the momentum so that’s always going to help and we just got to get the car to do what it did at Kingsport.  It’s going to be a lot of work.  We don’t have notes up there.  All we have to go with is what feedback we have from Hedgecock and also what we had last year when we went.  We’ve got to build a setup and go test and get better.”