MARTINSVILLE, VIRGINIA (October 21, 2007) – There is an old saying that “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.” Nothing could have made that come more to life for veteran driver Chad Chaffin and his suddenly stout Key Motorsports race team than what they experienced in Saturday’s wild Kroger 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the historic Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.

Chaffin, driving the #40 Westerman Companies Chevrolet Silverado for the fourth consecutive race, was immediately behind two massive wrecks that highlighted this zany affair that had drivers beating and banging their race trucks against each other the entire day.

With passing challenging on Martinsville’s very tight, paper clip-shaped half-mile oval that was made that much more difficult with the rock hard race tires that teams had to use, drivers had to resort to more physical means to make passes and improve their position on the track.

As is always the case on short tracks, track position is critical, and with some teams electing to change only two tires on pit stops instead of four and one team electing not to pit at all and to try and run the entire race without pitting, action became hectic. That led to two major incidents that involved more than half of the 36 race trucks that started the 200-lap race – the 21st of the 25 that make up the 2007 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series schedule.

Chaffin, who qualified a season second best 14th for the #40 Key Motorsports entry, was running in that same 14th position with just under 10 laps of racing left when the Toyota of defending NCTS champion Todd Bodine tried to squeeze under two other trucks coming into the fourth turn in an attempt to take over the 9th position. In a place where two trucks usually find the going pretty challenging, three trucks there is virtually impossible and that was proven out as the Chevrolet driven by Tim Sauter on the outside and the Ford driven by Travis Kvapil were collected by Bodine to start a 3-wide spin coming down the front stretch.

Sauter’s truck ended up turned around just before the start-finish line and the on-coming Ford of Joey Clanton slammed into Sauter’s machine to make worse a wreck that ended up collecting 10 trucks and forced the race to be stopped for clean up on lap 193. Of all the trucks involved in the incident, those piloted by Sauter, Clanton and Clay Rogers were done for the day while all of the other machines suffered severe body damage.

Chaffin, with guidance from spotter and Key Motorsports Director of Competition Tommy Morgan, was able to weave his green and white Westerman Companies truck through the carnage without incident and was showing 11th on the scoreboard when the red flag was waved.

The race was re-started with just three laps of racing remaining and the trucks in single file, but even that failed to prevent more from happening.

All of the trucks from the then third place Chevy driven by Matt Crafton back to the Chevy of Nextel Cup veteran Clint Bowyer, then in eighth place, began bunching on the next-to-final lap and with the trucks of Willie Allen, Ted Musgrave and Chaffin close behind in single file.

The trucks of Rick Crawford and Ron Hornaday forced Crafton’s up the race track, and when those of Bowyer and Denny Hamlin tried to dive underneath, all hell broke loose once again with a host of trucks spinning in every direction. Somehow, Chaffin again got through the mess, improving his position by four to seventh where he was when the checkered flag flew.

“I have no idea how I got through that mess,” Chaffin said. “There was a lot of smoke, so I really couldn’t see anything. I felt that the best thing for me to do was to turn left down towards the wall. It turned out to be the right decision and here we are with yet another best-ever finish for Curtis Key (team owner),” he added, alluding to the 8th place effort the team had at Talladega two weeks ago for what then was the best-ever NCTS finish for Key Motorsports in 43 career starts in the series.

Like everyone else, Chaffin found passing almost impossible, although what former Formula One and Indy Car great Jacques Villeneuve did to Chaffin on a lap 124 re-start was quite impressive.

The #40 was 14th at the time when Villeneuve’s Toyota made an unbelievable dive underneath the surprised Chaffin in turn four of the 125th lap to take away the position and forced Chaffin’s Chevrolet up the track a bit. It opened the door for four more trucks to gang up down low and follow Villeneuve passed Chaffin, moving the Westerman Companies truck to 19th, the farthest Chaffin had been all day.

Fortunately, Chaffin had a good horse to ride, and taking advantage of some other wrecks and using his experience, Chaffin was able to get back into the thick of things by lap 190 and to set the stage for the wild final 10 laps.

“Gary (crew chief Showalter) and the guys gave me a good piece today, and Curtis (Key) now has two straight top ten finishes. It shows how far this race team has come and how competitive it now can be against all these manufacturer-backed teams,” Chaffin explained.

“It was frustrating knowing that everyone in front of you was running the same speed as you and found it just as tough to pass as I did, but we knew that they weren’t finished wrecking up front and used some good sense to let them go at it and allow us the chance to move up that way. It worked, and I couldn’t be prouder of this team for how hard they have worked the last few weeks. We finally have the finishes to show for it,” Chaffin added.

Chaffin took over the Key Motorsports ride from Brandon Miller four races ago when the #40 was 29th in owner points. With a 16th place finish in Las Vegas and the back-to-back top tens, and some disappointments on the part of the competition, the #40 has now moved up into the 26th position in owner points and is within hailing distance of 21st with four races remaining.

“We set an objective in a team meeting after the New Hampshire race to get to 25th place in owner points by the end of the season,” said Showalter. We appear to be getting there a lot faster than we expected, but we have to continue to work hard and to work together to stay on this streak and get as high as we can at this point.

“Chad has done a tremendous job at helping us to pull everyone on the team together, and Curtis has given us the things we need to now be race-ready for the final races. We just now have to hope that luck continues to be on our side because we will be prepared,” Showalter ended.