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Chub Frank Racing
BEAR LAKE, Penn. (June 9) - Chub Frank ran "decent" to record a ninth-place finish in Saturday night's 14th annual Dirt Late Model Dream event at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
But for an ultra-competitive, fulltime professional race car driver like Chub, "decent" isn't good enough.
"We made the race, ran in the top 10 and took the car home in one piece," Chub said of his '08 assault on the UMP DIRTcar-sanctioned Dream. "But it wasn't really a good weekend. We wanted to run better."
Chub qualified 10th-fastest (17.181 seconds) among the 122 drivers that turned a lap during Friday night's single round of time trials. He started fourth in Saturday night's fourth heat and went on to transfer to the 100-lap A-Main with a third-place finish.
But while Chub was able to guide his Lester Buildings/Corry Rubber/All Star Performance/Corry Laser/Slavic Corporation/Farr MotorSports/Lake Shore Paving/Custom Race Engines Chevrolet Impala SS Rocket Chassis No. 1* from the 16th starting spot to the top 10 by lap 17 of the Dream headliner, his charge stalled there. He picked up only one position the remainder of the distance and crossed the finish line ninth, worth $2,500.
"We were decent, but we weren't gonna drive up through there like (Brian) Birkhofer," said Chub, referring to Birkhofer's run from the 21st starting spot to a second-place finish behind te $100,000 winner Scott Bloomquist. "I just didn't have the drive from the middle off. I could get to the center, but I just couldn't pick up the gas like I wanted to.
"When (Birky) went by the first time, I saw he could get back up on the gas a lot quicker than what we could."
Driving one of his newer Rocket cars, Chub registered his fourth top-10 finish in six career Dream A-Main starts. His best finish is third, achieved in 2007.
Chub is planning to take this weekend off from competition to prepare his equipment for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series 'Great Northern Tour' that crosses his native Northeast region from June 17-28. The swing begins on June 17 at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway and then continues on June 19 at Oshweken (Ont.) Speedway; June 21 at Quebec's Autodrome Drummond; June 22 at Cornwall (Ont.) Motor Speedway; June 24 at Canandaigua (N.Y.) Speedway; June 25 at Big Diamond Raceway in Minersville, Pa.; and June 27-28 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa. (the $40,000-to-win Firecracker 100).
The driver known as 'Chubzilla' will enter the 'Great Northern Tour' ranked fourth in the WoO LMS points standings through 12 events, just 20 points behind co-leaders Steve Francis and Darrell Lanigan.
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