November 20th, Homestead-Miami Speedway – Chad McCumbee felt Friday night’s season ending Ford 200 might break the SS Green Light Racing teams streak of six straight finishes outside of the top-ten in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. When the checkered flag flew after 136 laps, McCumbee just missed that mark with an eleventh place finish behind Kevin Harvick.

Once again, the No. 07 tiwi/Valvoline Fuel Proof Guarantee Chevrolet showed the promise of speed in Thursdays practice sessions with Chad running fifth in the final session. Friday afternoon Chad pulled off another stellar qualifying effort placing the SS Green Light Racing Chevy on the outside pole for the second time this season. It was McCumbee’s his ninth top-ten start of the year and the sixth time in his career that he has missed the pole by just one place.

Colin Braun brake-checked Chad at the start of the race and he dropped into fourth place at the end of the fist lap. On lap twelve, he reported to the crew his truck was too loose and when Ron Hornaday pulled right up to the tailgate of the tiwi/Valvoline Chevy taking the air off the spoiler it made Chad so loose that he had to back out of the throttle and dropped four places in the running order.

Fighting the loose condition, Chad lost several more positions in the ensuing laps falling back to twelfth when the first caution flew on lap 34. Following adjustments by the Bobby Dotter lead team Chad restarted 14th and with the truck handling better he quickly moved back into the top-ten by lap 50. Another caution flew on lap 58 and several teams tried to mix-up the pit strategy by not taking tires and that drop Chad back to 14th on the restart.

During a long green flag run that followed, Chad again worked the No. 07 towards the top-ten keeping the truck on the lead-lap through a round of green flag pit-stops and remained one of only twelve trucks on the lead lap when the races final caution flew on lap 130 setting-up a green, white, checker finish to end the 2009 season. Timothy Peters was the only lead-lap truck to stay on the track and Chad restarted eleventh and ended in eleventh after the two-lap sprint to the checkers with Harvick winning the battle.

“This was the third race in a row that we have had a great qualifying run and then truck is too loose at the start of the race and we lost all our track position,” McCumbee said. “These trucks are real sensitive and we are just missing the race set-up. Once Bobby and the guys get to make some adjustments and get the truck to handle better it is so hard to pass that we can’t make-up the positions, its frustrating to know you are as fast as the leaders, but can’t get back to them.”

“I would have loved to finish the year with a top-ten for all the guys on this team. I know they have worked hard to find a lot of speed in these trucks this year and it’s a shame we haven’t been able to close the deal these last races like we did earlier in the season.”

“I want to thank tiwi and Valvoline for coming on board these last three races, I have been proud to wear the colors of the “Fuel Proof Guarantee” for them. It’s a great program for fleet owners to save money and improve safety.”

“Overall, I think 2009 has been a turn-around year for SS Green Light Racing. We showed a lot of people how well we can run when we get the proper support and I think the future looks even better.”

For more on SS Green Light Racing visit www.SSRacingonline.com or email: pr@ssgreenlight.com.


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