Kevin Hamlin
Busch Advance for ORP
Race: Kroger 200 on Saturday, July 28, 2007
Track: O’Reilly Raceway Park (.686-mile oval)
Location: Indianapolis, Ind.
Kevin Hamlin and the No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Busch Series Dodge Team Facts:
Career-First Top 10 for Hamlin: Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) development driver Kevin Hamlin raced his way to a career-first top-10 NASCAR Busch Series (NBS) finish last Saturday night at Gateway International Raceway. In his 20th career NBS start, Hamlin lined up 13th to take the green and raced up to as high as fifth place before closing the night out with a career-best seventh-place finish.
Hamlin’s CGRFS Debut at ORP: This weekend’s Kroger 200 at O’Reilly Raceway Park (ORP) will be Hamlin’s first race behind the wheel of a CGRFS car at the short track. In 2005, Hamlin drove the No. 4 GEICO Dodge for Fred Biagi to a 26th-place finish at ORP. This weekend, Hamlin will be driving the No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge in his sixth NBS start of the year.
Welcome Home, Coffey: The No. 42 Texaco/Havoline team truck driver Time Coffey will get a glimpse of home this weekend as the team heads to the Indianapolis, Ind., area. Coffey called Greenwood, Ind., home before pursuing a career in NASCAR six years ago. He first started his racing career in IndyCar, before a holiday vacation to North Carolina landed him his first job in NASCAR. Coffey not only transports more than one million dollars worth of equipment every weekend, but he also serves as the team chef and then goes over the wall to gas the car on race day. He is a graduate of Southport High School, and the majority of his family still resides in the Indianapolis area.
Owner Points Update: Hamlin and the No. 42 Texaco/Havoline team’s top-10 finish at Gateway International Raceway last weekend lifted them two spots in the NBS owner standings, where the team is currently 13th. The No. 42 CGRFS Busch team is now just 77 points outside the top 10.
Chassis: Crew chief Brian Pattie and his Texaco/Havoline crew are pulling out chassis #753 to race this Saturday at ORP. The car has only been entered in two other races since it was built–Texas Motor Speedway this past April and Lowe’s Motor Speedway (LMS) this past May. At Texas, the team took a 36th-place starting position and raced up to 10th before getting collected in a multi-car accident less than 100 laps into the 200-lap competition (finished 35th). Then, at LMS, the team was working on improving a top-30 starting position, when a tight-handling race car lost its grip on the track and hit the outside wall (finished 42nd).
