06-04-2004 | Charles Krall, Trackside Editor

Chad Chaffin stunned the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with a surprise victory in the MBNA America 200 at the Dover International Speedway. The fact that Chaffin won the race was not a surprise, but the way the team pulled it off was the shocker.

Chaffin was leading and had yet to make his final pit stop when Kevin Love crashed coming off turn four to bring out the caution flag on lap 152. The caution pinned several of the leaders at least one lap down, and left Chaffin in control of his own destiny. By scoring the win, Chaffin becomes the sixth different winner in six NCTS races in 2004, and the first driver to score his first career win this season.

The race got off to a slow start after Bill Lester, Mark McFarland, and Brandon Whitt got together coming out of turn four on lap 6. McFarland was eliminated in the accident, while Lester and Whitt continued after repeated pit stops to repair the damage to their trucks.

After the restart, Steve Park showed his strength by charging past pole-sitter Carl Edwards and into the lead on lap 32. Park led until the next caution, brought out when Lance Hooper had an engine failure in turn one. Park led the leaders on top pit road, but came out in 15th position after trouble on his pit stop.

Mike Skinner took control of the field after the round of pit stops. At times, Skinner stretched the lead to nearly two seconds over Edwards and Dave Blaney.

While the race then went green for 22 laps, but the caution waved on lap 72 when Brad Keselowski went up in flamed entering turn one. Keselowski made contact with the wall, while Chase Montgomery got caught up in the fluid left by Keselowski's blown engine and also was swept into the wall. The fourth caution flag flew just three laps after the restart when Matt Crafton suffered and engine failure going into turn three.

The field then raced to the next round of pit stops, which started under green on lap 139 when Skinner pitted from the lead. Two challengers were snakebitten under this round of stops. Bobby Hamilton, who was running fourth before the round of pit stops started, over shot the entrance to pit road and was forced to make another lap to get to pit road, while Dennis Setzer had a long stop while the crew was forced to go back around to the right side and tighten a loose lug nut.

On lap 149, luck struck down the leader Edwards ran the fuel cell dry down the backstretch. Edwards' truck sat on pit road as the crew tried to refire the engine. As the crew fought to push the truck down pit road, Kevin Love struck the inside pit wall directly across from Edwards' truck. The resulting caution trapped several of the leaders a lap or more off the pace, while Chaffin, Rick Crawford, Hank Parker, and Ken Schrader were the only drivers that remained on lead lap. The four leaders pitted, allowing the nine drivers trapped one lap down to restart the race on the tail end of the lead lap, hoping for a quick caution flag.

On the restart, Chaffin quickly tucked into traffic and held off Crawford's advances until Ken Weaver crashed with just 10 laps to go coming off turn four. Chaffin's 1.9-second lead was nullified, and the caution allowed the pack that had been scattered around the entire length of the Monster Mile to close up on Chaffin's rear bumper.

Chaffin was able to hold off Crawford on the final restart to score his first win, while Crawford, Hank Parker, Jr., Mike Skinner, and Ken Schrader rounded out the top five finishers. Dave Blaney, in his first career NCTS start, finished sixth, with Andy Houston, David Starr, Jack Sprague, and Jon Wood rounding out the top ten.