ROGERS’ STRONG RUN AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
CUT SHORT BY LATE-RACE ENGINE PROBLEMS

Crew Chief Gary Showalter had predicted that driver Clay Rogers would have a strong race truck for the running of Friday night’s Sam’s Town 400K NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, TX. For the first 125 laps of the 167-lap affair, Showalter was on the money as Rogers had driven the #40 Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet Silverado into the top ten and with an eye at the team’s best finish of the 2007 season.

Unfortunately, and with little warning, something broke in the engine on lap 126 and Rogers and his Key Motorsports team were forced to shut the race truck down early and settle for a highly disappointing 25th place finish.

“Without question we had a top ten truck,” said Showalter, pointing to the top finishers of the race that was won by defending Series’ champion Todd Bodine when he spun out leader Travis Kvapil on the final lap.

“We were running all night with or better than the 88 (the Chevy driven by Matt Crafton), the 9 (the Ford piloted by Ted Musgrave) and the 1 (the Toyota of Aaron Fike), and they finished in the top ten. We had a really strong race truck and Clay (Rogers) did a great job. Everyone worked their tails off this weekend and we certainly deserved a better fate, but we have to be able to finish to get this team moving up the standings,” Showalter added.

In reality, Crafton and Musgrave finished the race in the top 10 (Crafton seventh and Musgrave ninth) while Fike was eleventh, but Showalter’s comments were proven when the #40 was on the track.

Rogers qualified a not-so-spectacular 23rd fastest of the 35 trucks that started the race but asserted himself from the outset.

He broke into the top 20 for the first time on lap 16 after Erik Darnell’s Ford blew an engine to bring out the race’s second caution flag.

The #40 moved into 19th place on the re-start on lap 23, and when Jack Sprague’s Toyota spun in the second turn for the race’s third caution just four laps later, Rogers had driven into the 14th position and said that his machine was really good.

Three laps after the re-start from Sprague’s spin, Rogers moved into tenth place and showed exceptional strength through the corners with an exceptionally good handling truck that only became stronger on long runs when the tires wore down. “I was really killing them in the turns,” Rogers commented.

“During a long run, Clay was turning laps in the 31.30’s and 31.40’s while the leaders were running a tenth or two slower, so we knew that the longer we could run without caution the field would start coming back to us. He was running 13th and running down a pack of trucks in front of him for position when he radioed in that he had lost power. It was a terrible way to end a day that had looked so bright for us,” Showalter added.

“I had a great race truck that got a little tight as the laps mounted, but I was better than many of the other trucks and we knew we had the equipment to get the job done and finish way up there,” Rogers stated. “This team has really turned things around, so it is definitely frustrating to have everything going your way and then the engine breaks. One of these days everything is going to click for us and we’ll have the luck you need to get those top finishes,” Clay added.

The performance by Rogers was the best for the Key Motorsports contingent since the season opener in Daytona when Mike Bliss was behind the wheel and running seventh and experiencing few problems with just about 20 laps to go when the engine in the #40 began running hot and eventually expired.

“Curtis (team owner Curtis W. Key, Sr.) is working hard to turn our engine program around, and when he does, this race team will show that it is on par with the other top teams in this garage area,” said Director of Competition Tommy Morgan.

“We have made a lot of changes to our chassis the last few weeks that have proven to be better than what we had. We believe that we have the kind of drivers who can get the job done and are also working to improve our pit crew. We get our motor program turned around and we will be close to achieving our number one goal of being the best Chevrolet on the track,” he added.

Showalter said that he saw potential problems developing with the team’s Texas motor following the re-start on lap 87 when Rogers said that he felt a slight vibration, but it was not something that anyone thought was terminal.

“Clay’s lap times were still pretty good, but I did notice that he began losing some speed down the straight-aways. But he was still running well enough after almost 40 laps and was chasing down some trucks in front of him when something broke in the top half of the motor…probably a cylinder or valve,” Showalter added.

Rogers will try and help the team rebound next Saturday when the NCTS moves to the Michigan International Speedway for the running of the Michigan 200.