NEWTON, Iowa. – On the heels of a strong performance at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway last month, Chad Finley Racing (CFR) heads to Iowa Speedway with driver Chad Finley looking for their second career top-10 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series (NGOTS) finish in Saturday night’s M&M’s 200.
In his second NGOTS start of the year in the backyard of NASCAR country at Charlotte, Finley put on a thrilling performance which included rallying from a mid-race miscue to bolt into the top-10 before a late-race restart buckled the team’s opportunity to capitalize on their strong night.
Knowing they could have easily finished inside the top-10, being in the wrong lane at the wrong time on the final restart of the night hindered Finley’s opportunity at earning his best speedway finish in Trucks and instead left the Mooresville, N.C.-organization with an 18th place finish.
Still, the team is upbeat about their Charlotte effort and plans to finish what they started in the Midwest at Newton’s Iowa Speedway.
“I’m really hoping for a strong weekend at Iowa Speedway,” said Finley. “I’m really proud of the efforts of my Chad Finley Racing team and their ability to put a fast Strutmasters.com, Air Lift Company and Auto Value Certified Service Centers Truck on the race track. No doubt we’re going to Iowa this week planning to finish what we started at Charlotte.”
It’s been 10 years since Finley has been to Iowa’s 0.875-mile short track. In 2009, Finley, a native of DeWitt, Mich. competed in an ARCA Menards Series race driving for Brad Keselowski Racing. Despite qualifying mid-pack, Finley rallied to earn a ninth-place finish in just his second career ARCA start.
His second consecutive top-10 finish at the time is one of 11 top-10 finishes in 20 career ARCA Menards Series races that spans over five seasons. While competing at a track a decade ago can be tough to rekindle, Finley still has a good memory of the facility and the type of racing it embraces.
“Iowa is a fun place,” Finley added. “It’s been a long time, a real long time since I’ve been there, but I’m hoping the fundamentals are pretty much the same.
“While there’s plenty of racing grooves, track position and tire conservation is still incredibly important. Thankfully, when it comes to my team, I feel like I have one of the best in the business in my crew chief Bruce Cook and look forward to seeing what we can do on Saturday night.”
Strutmasters.com, Air Lift Company and Auto Value Certified Service Centers will serve as the primary marketing partners for Saturday night’s anticipated thriller.
Since 1999, Strutmasters.com has served as an industry leader in suspension parts and air to non-air suspension conversion kits.
Finley also has additional support from Northsidetowing.net and XLT Engineering as well for the 10thrace of the season.
In addition to his seven prior Truck starts, Finley, 27, has 20 ARCA Menards Series starts to his credit.
In his years of ARCA competition between 2009 and 2018 Finley has mounted one-win (Nashville 2017), eight top-five and 11 top-10 finishes, including a pole (track record) at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway in 2009.
Finley is the son of former ARCA winner and NASCAR driver Jeff Finley.
The M&M’s 200 (200 laps|175 miles) is the 10th of 23 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series races on the 2019 schedule. Practice begins on Sat., June 15 from 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. A final practice session is set for 10:30 a.m. – 11:55 a.m. Qualifying is set for later in the day beginning at 4:35 p.m. The 32-truckfield will take the green flag shortly after 7:30 p.m. with live coverage on FOX Sports 1 (FS1), the Motor Racing Network (Radio) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Satellite Radio, Channel 90). All times are local (Central).
For additional information on Chad Finley and his race team please visit ChadFinleyRacing.com.
Follow Chad Finley on Twitter @Chad_Finley.
