MADISON, Ill. -- Chad Chaffin failed to let a cut right front tire and a brush with the turn one wall deter his fledgling Key Motorsports team Saturday night, rallying from 11 laps down to post a hard-earned, 26th place finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Gateway International Raceway outside of St. Louis.

Flying in from Talladega where he successfully had qualified for Sunday’s Nextel Cup Series race earlier on Saturday afternoon, Chaffin started the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers Ram Tough 200 without having turned a single lap. He used the information provided by practice driver Ryan Moore and crew chief Barry Dodson to aid in the set-up under his #40 Key Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado that carried sponsorship for the race from Russell E. Garwood Electrical Contractors of Marco Island, FL. The results were encouraging.

“Ryan did a heck of a job providing information to Barry during the practice session, and from what I understand, it helped solve a tight handling situation that I never experienced during the race”, Chaffin explained. “Ryan did the work I needed to jump in an untested truck and to be able to drive it the way I was able to. It’s just a shame that I had to run over something on the race track and cut down that right front tire”.

That incident occurred on lap 15 after Chaffin had vaulted nine positions and into the 27th position. “We were going to the front”, Chad exclaimed, only to see it go out the window with the tire incident.

Fortunately, Chaffin was able to avoid major contact with the turn one retaining wall, but it did do enough damage that ended up costing the team three laps changing the cut tire and moving sheet metal off of the tire, and then eight more making repairs behind the wall to the damaged fender after that. “There’s no telling where we might have finished had we not had that problem. The truck and motor (the first the team has used this season from Fischer Engineering) were that good. In fact, it was a better piece then I had when I almost won this race last year (when Chaffin was hit from behind while leading near the end of the race and fell to fourth at the checkers)”.

The fast Key Motorsports Chevrolet never came close to losing another lap over the final 126 laps and consistently ran lap times equal to the majority of the race’s fastest trucks. Chaffin said he enjoyed himself as he narrowly missed scoring a top 25 finish.

“This is one great handling machine boys” is what Barry radioed to his crew during a mid-race caution. “We now have a motor with plenty of torque, and a truck that really handles well and is fun to drive. We’re gonna really have some fun as the year wears on, and I can tell you that we are getting closer”, Chaffin added.

“Chad did a heck of a job, and he is really great to work with, but we had a truck that was definitely capable of winning this race”, Dodson said after the race. “But even if we had the chance to run for the win we wouldn’t have won it because of what we were not able to do in the pits. That will not happen to us again”, Dodson promised firmly, meaning more changes are in store for a team that is finally starting to show signs of jelling.

“Curtis is serious about this business and has promised to give us what we need to be successful”, Dodson said. “Successful to him is for us to be able to come out week and after week and be competitive. We’ve changed our engine package, our set-ups, how we work at the shop and some personnel. We have a young, green race team, so we will chalk up tonight’s race to helping to provide some experience. We can only get better”, Dodson ended.