MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON -- LAS VEGAS -- During his nearly 20 years behind the wheel of a racecar, Chad Chaffin has been involved in plenty of spins on the racetrack. But his handling of the Team Rensi Motorsports / Team Marines entry during a spin here Saturday in the Sam's Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was certainly one of his most memorable moves.
On lap 47 of the 200-lap, 300-mile race, Chaffin was approaching turn two on the 1.5-mile track when fellow Busch Series driver Tim Fedewa nudged the No. 25 Team Marines Chevrolet Monte Carlo from behind. Chaffin's mount was turned around and started drifting backward toward the outside wall at better than 140 mph.
Chaffin's next move drew comparisons to Indy-car driver Danny Sullivan's spin during the 1986 Indy 500. Sullivan's car whirled 360 degrees on the front stretch at Indy that year and still won the race.
As the Team Marines car headed for the concrete wall Saturday, Chaffin did everything he could to keep from impacting the barrier. He used every bit of leg strength to brake the car to a stop, he said.
He succeeded. The rear bumper of the car came within inches of the wall. As a result, Chaffin stayed in the race and finished 25th.
The spin dropped the Team Marines crew almost a dozen spots in the 43-car field and forced Chaffin to stop for a tire change.
"As spins go, that one wasn't really all that bad -- it was more like a slow spin, or at least it felt slow," recalled Chaffin.
"These cars are designed to stop really well when you're going forward, but they don't slow down much when they're heading backward. But at least we didn't hit the wall.
"Where it really hurt us was in the loss of track position. We were running really well, and then to have that happen when it did cost us all the spots we had gained during the first 40 or so laps of the race. It also meant that we had to pit because we had to flat-spot the tires during the spin."
The contact with Fedewa and the resulting spin, says Chaffin, was caused by a loss of downforce on the Team Marines car.
"Tim and I were with a bunch of cars that were all trying to catch up with the lead pack of 10 or so cars," he said.
"He got up a little close behind me and took some of the air off the spoiler, and pretty soon, we were locking wheels and I was heading for the wall. It was one of those things that happens when you're racing real hard."
Chaffin said the more time the green flag was up, the better the car ran -- which is why the spin proved so costly.
"The car really wasn't very good on the restarts, and we had already had so many cautions in the early laps that we were losing ground to the leaders. When I spun, the NASCAR officials decided not to throw a caution flag, and by the time I got the car up to speed again, the leaders were coming around to put a lap on me.
"We couldn't race with those flat-spotted tires, and by the time we had pitted to get new tires, we were almost two laps down. In Busch Series racing, unlike in Winston Cup, our races are much shorter. If you get down a lap in a Busch Series race, it is really hard to make it up because we have fewer laps to do it in."
Over the last 100 laps, Chaffin says, Team Marines performed almost flawlessly.
"Once we got going on the longer runs, the car really came to us. We had a great chassis setup and we felt like we had a really good car for the last 100 laps. My crewchief Greg (Ely) made all the right calls and the crew did an outstanding job during our pit stops.
"If we had been able to avoid getting caught up in that spin, I'm sure we would have had a top-10 or top-15 car -- we were doing that well."
Even though Chaffin brought the Team Marines car home in 25th place, he moved up two spots in the Busch Series standings, from 30th to 28th after three of 33 scheduled races for the 2001 season. The next stop is the ultra-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Aaron's 312 this weekend. The race will be broadcast on Fox beginning at 10 a.m.
Chaffin was philosophical about Team Marines' results at Las Vegas and is eager to get to Atlanta.
"It's too bad we got into that spin, but those kinds of things happen in racing," he said.
"I'm really feeling positive about this team. Things are beginning to come together for us. We're all new to each other, we've got all new cars and I'm a new driver for the team. We're all getting better at communicating with each other and getting to know what to expect from each other -- that's really going to help as the season progresses.
"The spin could have been a lot worse. We could have finished 42nd or 43rd, but as it was, we came out of there with a 25th -- that's something that we can all be proud of. It also gives us something to build on as we go to Atlanta."