Chad Hillier Knoxville Nationals summary

Hillier Works Overtime at Knoxville Nationals

KNOXVILLE, IA (August 11) -- The inclement weather that caused officials to postpone Wednesday's opening-night festivities forced Chad Hillier to pull double duty Saturday on the final day of the 47th Annual Knoxville Nationals.

Hillier, a World of Outlaws Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year contender, drove the #5C DIRT Inc. Maxim into 18th place in Saturday's Non-Qualifiers' "A" Feature and ran sixth in the final program's "D" Feature.

After recording the 17th-fastest qualifying lap in Thursday's program, Hillier was hoping to progress farther toward the $150,000-to-win championship race.

"It was a pretty narrow racetrack and we weren't much better than everybody else," Chad said after Saturday's "D" Feature. "We just held her to the floor and she gave us all she had. We were a little off with the car and the motor just didn't seem to want to get up and go."

Earlier in the day, Hillier raced into fifth place in the First Heat Race and ran second in the "B" Feature to qualify for the Non-Qualifier's main event. He led most of the "B" Feature before being passed by Scott Winters.

"Our second Knoxville Nationals had a similar result to the first one," Hillier said. "We had a little better qualifying night, but the end result was about the same. If we could do it all over, we'd make a few changes on the qualifying night to put us in better position for the final night. We had a tough heat race, and it went downhill from there. If we could have started in a better position, we would have been better off. It's like any normal show; if you start in the first five rows, you can finish in the first five, but if you start in the back 10, it's hard to get up there and do anything. There was just a good class of cars out here this year, which makes it a tough deal. At the Nationals, you just have to get the motor running good, get the car right and catch the breaks at the right time."

Hillier and his DIRT Inc. teammates are looking forward to returning to the World of Outlaws' trail.

"The Nationals is a big deal, but we'll go on to Minot (ND) this week, get back to our everyday routine and try to turn things around," Chad said.

The World of Outlaws will run a single-program event at Nodak Speedway Tuesday, then return to Canada for a double-feature event at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta, Friday and Saturday.

-credit: dirt-inc