Chad Hillier Chico Gold Cup summary

Hillier Finishes 10th in 'B' in Gold Cup Finale

CHICO, CA (September 8) -- Racing against the best of the best in one of sprint car racing's most elite events, Chad Hillier drove the #5c DIRT Inc. Maxim into 10th place in the "B" Feature in the 54th Annual Gold Cup Race of Champions finale Saturday at Silver Dollar Speedway.

"We just held our own," the World of Outlaws Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year contender said. "We had a decent car but, obviously, it wasn't good enough. We were better up on the top, but so were a lot of other guys. You needed to be really good around the bottom to pass anybody. (Tim) Kaeding (who passed 13 cars to claim the final qualifying position for the "A" Feature) did it, so I guess there's no excuse.

"We just didn't quite get it done, unfortunately. Everybody worked hard and we did everything we could to get into the feature. We were just a little off. The track was slicker than we thought it was going to be; it was slicker than it was the first two days. When a guy got by you, it was really tough to get him back. If somebody messed up on the cushion, you had to check up because it was so tough to drive through the slick to get by anybody. You just had to have an exceptional car to run where everybody else wasn't."

Hillier and his DIRT Inc. teammates are scheduled to race at a couple of Midwest 3/8-mile tracks this week: Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer, IA, Wednesday and Heartland Park in Topeka, KS, Friday.

"We're looking forward to getting back to the Outlaws points races," Chad said.

-credit: dirt-inc