Chad Hillier Edmonton final summary

Hillier Hits Wall, Loses Top-10 in Oil City Finale

EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA (August 19) -- World of Outlaws Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year contender Chad Hillier was running 10th in Sunday's Oil City Cup finale at Castrol Raceway when the #5C DIRT Inc. Maxim hit the wall and turned over.

Hillier, who finished 11th on opening night, raced back into 17th place in the "A" Feature following the incident to maintain the 19th position in the World of Outlaws point standings.

An excellent qualifying run gave Hillier the luxury of racing in the Crane Cams Dash -- and starting in the first five rows in the main event -- for the second straight race.

"We had a good qualifying run," Chad said of his 103.006-MPH lap. "A lot of times when we've only run one lap, we struggled -- but not this time. We were pleased to run in the dash two nights in a row. The guys (Pete Stevens, Curtis Bye and Travis Van Dam) had the car more powerful than it had been lately. Qualifying got us into the dash this time. We were sixth-quick, and we were able to get into the dash because some guys didn't make it out (qualify for the feature in their heat races).

"We had a good night going until I jumped the cushion and got into the wall. It wasn't a real nasty cushion, but it was slick up to it. I just got in there a little wrong and got the right front (tire) up over it and couldn't get it pulled back out of the cushion before it got into the wall. The car bounced a little bit and tipped over on its side."

Hillier, who started outside the fifth row, battled Tim Shaffer, fellow rookie Sam Hafertepe Jr. and Justin Henderson in the top 10 before clipping the wall during the 19th lap.

"We were running well before we hit the wall," Chad said. "We were mixing it up with Tim, Hafertepe and the D1 early. It was a pretty racy track; we were running better on the cushion than we were on the bottom. It was really slick and everybody was trying to get into the two grooves in the corners. It was some really good racing; it was just unfortunate that we got into the wall like that."

Hillier and DIRT Inc. are looking forward to racing close to their Washington homes when the World of Outlaws runs a double-feature event at Skagit Speedway Friday and Saturday.

-credit: dirt-inc