TWO PIT ROAD PENALTIES AND LOST ALTERNATOR BELT
HANDICAPS HUFFMAN’S DOVER RUN FOR KEY MOTORSPORTS

Pit road penalties have not been an issue for Key Motorsports in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition the last two seasons, but the team and driver Shane Huffman were bitten by two of them Friday afternoon in Dover, DE and it proved costly. Add a lost alternator belt to the situation and it proves to be disastrous.

Huffman was running in the 17th position and a lap down to then leader and eventual race winner Ron Hornaday, Jr. when he made his second pit stop on lap 122. Huffman left pit road in the #40 Curtis Key Plumbing/2Fat Guys American Grill Chevrolet Silverado in the 19th spot but a lug nut was left off of the left rear wheel and Huffman was ordered to make a return trip to pit road on lap 125 to have it installed.

Huffman was then nailed for a speeding infraction exiting the pits and had to make a pass through on pit road. The two infractions cost Huffman a total of four laps and dropped him back to 27th place when the race’s fourth caution flew for Rick Crawford’s backstretch accident on lap 129.

Huffman pitted again for a slight adjustment to his truck and to have his fuel tank topped off a lap later during this caution but radioed back to his pit just two laps later that the motor shut off and that he was unable to get it re-started as the green flag flew. The culprit this time was a lost alternator belt requiring the team to change batteries. Fifteen laps were required to make this change and dropped the #40 back even further in the field.

Fortunately, several other race trucks exited the race with motor problems over the final 50 laps enabling Huffman to gain a few spots and end the day in the 24th position on a day that his team was looking for a top 15 finish to maintain momentum it had gained last week with Clay Rogers’ 16th place finish in Mansfield, Ohio.

“These things happen in racing,” is what Huffman had to say about the team’s woes at Dover International Speedway during the running of the AAA Insurance 200.

“We had some minor handling issues that caused us to lose that early lap, but we had a decent, top 15 race truck and just wanted to come away with another solid finish a race truck that was in one piece. We only had half of our wish granted,” said crew chief Gary Showalter.

“There is no way that I was speeding down pit road based on what I saw on my tachometer, but the reading I was seeing probably was not accurate because of the missing alternator belt. That and the missing lug nut just put us in a hole and then the laps we lost replacing the battery just put more dirt on top of us,” Huffman explained.

Prior to those lap 122 and 125 pit road infractions, Huffman spent most of the day running for position with the trucks driven by Chad McCumbee, Willie Allen, Ryan Matthews and Blake Bjorklund. Showalter’s statement about having a top 15 truck was proven in the final race rundown with these four drivers finishing 13th through 16th, respectively.

“There’s not much we can do about it now except to make sure that we don’t have repeats of the problems we experienced today,” Showalter said. “We want to give Shane and the other drivers we have equipment that they can drive and have confidence in. We’ll learn from what happened today and it will make us a better race team for the future,” he added.

Rogers will return behind the wheel of the Key Motorsports #40 Chevy next Friday night at the Texas Motor Speedway for the running of the Sam’s Town 400K while Huffman will make his next appearance in the June 22nd test in Milwaukee.