Day Ends Early For Cale Gale at Kansas

04-30-2007 | TruckSeries.com Report

Cale Gale was behind the wheel of the No. 2 Kevin Harvick Inc.(KHI), Chevrolet Silverado for his second NASCAR Truck Series race of the season. The truck was fast right from the start, but brake trouble ended a great run, and Gale was only able to complete 82 of the 167 laps of the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250.

In his first practice session Gale was in the 20th position with a speed of 32.755 seconds (164.860 mph), and was the third fastest during the rookie practice session with a speed of 32.654 seconds (165.370 mph). As the No. 2 team was preparing for their final practice session of the day, a heavy downpour of rain began. It continued throughout the afternoon, soaking the track and causing practice to be cancelled. But even with a shortened amount of practice, and this being Gale's first time at the mile-and-a-half track, he qualified the next day in the sixth position with a time of 31.950 seconds (169.014 mph).

Gale battled in the top 10 for the first portion of the event, and then settled into the 15th position gaining valuable track time. KHI teammate Ron Hornaday radioed to his spotter Lennie Chandler, and asked where Gale was on the track. Hornaday, offering advice and guidance to the rookie driver, asked Chandler to relay a message, "tell Cale I have a lower entry into the corners, see if that will help him with his speed."

The No. 2 truck continued to run solidly in the top 15 until his scheduled green-flag pit stop for tires and fuel on lap 58. He headed to pit road for tires and fuel. When Gale headed back out to the track, he immediately noticed that his brake pedal was soft. He continued to race as his brakes only worked intermittently, but the No. 2 KHI truck was quickly losing brake fluid. Once all the fluid had drained out, Gale was left only with rear brakes. As Gale came to pit road for another scheduled pit stop under caution on lap 73, he attempted to navigate around the No. 7 truck of Jason White to enter his pit stall, but the rear brakes locked up. The No. 2 truck shot around into the pit stall backwards, hitting the pit wall causing significant damage to the machine.

After the pit stop, Gale went out for one lap before crew chief Charlie Wilson told him to bring the truck to the garage so the team could work on the brakes. The No. 2 team found that a brake bleeder had broken. With the brake problem fixed, Gale returned to competition. However, the damage to the No. 2 truck was far more extensive. Gale brought the damaged machine to the garage after completing 82 of 167 laps.

This was Cale Gale's second start in the Truck Series for KHI. His next race in the No. 2 Camping World Chevrolet will be at the Indianapolis (Ind.) Raceway Park on July, 27, 2007. Gale will also drive the No. 33 Camping World Busch Series car June 9, 2007 at the Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.

Cale Gale: "Our Chevrolet Silverado was great in practice, and it was awesome to qualify sixth my first time at Kansas. Charlie Wilson and the guys gave me a great truck that was capable of finishing in the top 10. I hate it for the guys that we had brake issues. I wish we could have finished better, but now I'm just going to prepare for taking the No. 2 truck to Indianapolis (Ind.) and also for the Busch race in the No. 33 car at Nashville (Tenn.)."

Crew Chief Charlie Wilson: "Cale was doing a great job out there. He qualified sixth and was running around 15th when we pitted the first time. We just couldn't recover from our brake issues. It's too bad for Cale and the rest of our team. Cale was up to fourth place at one point, we definitely had a top-10 truck."

Kevin Harvick will drive the No. 2 Camping World Chevrolet in the Quaker Steak and Lube 200 presented by Circle K at Lowe's Motor Speedway.