Clay Rogers returned to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series wars Saturday afternoon at the Kansas Speedway after nearly a 2-year absence, rallying from a series of early-race problems to score a 21st place finish for his Key Motorsports mates in the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250.

Rogers, who qualified 26th in the 36-truck starting field earlier in the day, had worked his way up to the 21st position after the first few laps only to give it all back on lap 8 when he spun his No. 40 Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet in the second turn while battling for position with the trucks driven by Travis Kittleson and Matt Crafton.

A bad set of tires on the subsequent pit stop Rogers made after the spin resulted in a very loose handling condition. The lengthy green flag run that followed ended up putting Rogers' mount a lap down to early-race and Series' point leader Mike Skinner with Rogers just unable to run through the middle of the corners at any end of the race track.

"It was really weird for the truck to change that drastically when we put that second set of tires on, but the truck just got uncontrollably loose and that long green flag run just put us in a hole," Rogers said.

Despite the problem, crew chief Barry Dodson was hoping that the two early stops that his team made for the tire change on lap 8 and then a chassis adjustment on lap 24 during the race's second caution period would play into his team's hands with most of the lead lap trucks having yet to make their first pit stops of the day.

"We had 20-plus laps of fuel on them, and if we could stay just a lap down, we should have gotten that lap back when everyone finally pitted," Dodson thought, detailing his frustration when NASCAR officials ruled that the No. 40 had indeed still been a lap down on lap 73 when it pitted under yellow for tires, fuel and a major adjustment following the lap 71 caution brought out when Kelly Sutton spun down the back stretch. The leading trucks made their first pit stops of the day beginning on lap 55 and began cycling through the field when the No. 40 made its third pit stop of the race.

"If we were still a lap down at that point I would never have pitted," Dodson said, but instead of getting back onto the lead lap, Rogers was showing 23rd on the grid but a lap down along with some of the race's better trucks of drivers Ron Hornaday, Jr., Willie Allen, Travis Kvapil, Stacy Compton, David Starr and Bill Lester when the race was restarted on lap 78. NASCAR said that there were still four trucks out there that hadn't pitted when the caution came out, but the way I saw it, those same trucks pitted with us earlier in the race, so there was no way that we didn't un-lap ourselves," was Dodson's added explanation - NASCAR maintained that the No. 40 was still a lap down.

Adjustments improved the handling on Rogers' machine for the balance of the race, but a lack of horsepower made it tough for Rogers to contend with many of the better trucks. The end result was the loss of two more laps to the dominating Ford of eventual race winner Erik Darnell, the last coming with just 14 laps to go and with Rogers trying to rundown the Ford driven by a fading Scott Lynch that would have earned him a top 20 finish in his very first outing for Key Motorsports.

"I just couldn't do anything with the better trucks going down the straightaway," Rogers said in explaining his horsepower deficiency. "We did improve the handling on the truck a bunch, though, especially for those final 60 laps or so, and I just ran out of laps in trying to get that 20th spot," he added. Rogers made up nearly half a lap over the race's final four laps trying to catch Lynch but fell a half truck length short at the stripe.

As for the early race problems, Rogers didn't point fingers. "I'm a little frustrated with myself right now," Rogers said after the race. "I made a mistake with that spin there early in the race, but I thought I had those two trucks beat as I tried to drive under them in turn two. But they pinched me off and I spun the truck. It was my fault," Rogers stated.

Though it did cost the team a set of tires, Dodson thought that Rogers did a great job under the circumstances and was proud of the way his race team rallied back.

"I thought everyone on this race team did a great job today," Dodson explained. "No one lost focus or confidence, even with those early problems, and they didn't miss a beat whenever we did pit to change tires, put in fuel or make adjustments. Clay and everybody deserved a better fate today," Dodson added.