After three straight NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races that ended early, Jason White got to run the entire distance Friday night at the Chicagoland Speedway. While it was far from the team's best run of the season, White ran the entire 154 laps in the top 15 and brought home the ASI Limited/Akzo-Nobel No. 23 in 11th-place in the EnjoyIllinois.com 225 behind winner Kyle Busch.
The SS Green Light team lead by Doug Howe spent the practice session fine-tuning the handling of the No. 23 ASI Limited Chevy moving up the time charts each time out. White qualified 11th on Friday afternoon with a lap of 31.33 seconds on the mile and a half track at 172.34 mph.
From the drop of the green, White held his ground and raced hard in the top 10 with several good side by side battles with Mike Skinner and Matt Crafton before settling into 12th on lap 20. White radioed to the crew that he was "tight from center-off." The team added one pound of air pressure to the right rear tire on the first stop under caution on lap 29 to address the tight condition.
The small adjustment changed the handling of White's truck as he reported on lap 33 that "this truck is all over the track loose" and dropped back to 14th. The second caution flew on lap 79 and this time Howe called for four fresh Goodyear tires and an adjustment to both rear shocks. The changes helped White, but not enough to move into the top 10 in the running order.
The team tried some strategy to gain track position under caution on lap 125. Howe called for just two right side tires and White jumped up to seventh in the running order. With only 25 laps to the finish White raced hard with Timothy Peters and Chris Fontaine to hold positions in the top 10, but the truck was too tight with the two tires.
A late caution flew with just two laps to go, so Howe called White to the pit for left side tires to balance out the ASI Limited/Akzo Nobel Chevy. White restarted as the last truck on the lead lap. In just two laps of green flag racing, White charged from 14th to 11th at the checkers behind teammate David Starr.
"We never got this truck totally figured out. We just didn't get the balance quite right," said White after the race. "It's not the result we were hoping for but at least the truck is in one piece.
"It feel's good to finish a race," he added. "We'll take this and build on it for next week at Kentucky."
"We have three trucks that finished the race without a scratch," said SS Green Light General Manager Bobby Dotter. "I'm proud of everyone. We can get back to the shop and try to find a little more speed for Kentucky."
The finish kept White 11th in NCWTS point standings behind leader Todd Bodine, just four points out of the top 10.
