TIMING OF CAUTIONS DROPS HAMILTON FROM TOP 15 IN ATLANTA

Sometimes you’re the window, sometimes you’re the bug. In NASCAR terms, throughout each race, a period of opportunities, breaks and bad luck will occur for each driver. If your timing is right, you can end up looking like a hero, if timing is off; well you know the rest of the story.

After starting from the 14th position at the cold and windy Atlanta Motor Speedway, Team Smithfield driver Bobby Hamilton kept the Curly’s Ford right around the 15th position for the majority of the first half of the race. A serious of caution flags allowed teams to jump onto a different pit stop strategy. Team Smithfield Crew Chief Chris Wright saw an opportunity to possibly move Hamilton to the front by choosing a different pit strategy than the leaders.

The move allowed Hamilton to race to the front and actually lead a lap, picking up five bonus points. After leading the lap, Hamilton came to pit road for fuel and the caution waved a couple of laps later. At that point in the race, the caution came a few laps to late to be a positive break for Hamilton. He was now one lap down to the leaders as opposed to finding his car as one of 10-12 cars on the lead lap.

From that point forward, Hamilton found himself stuck in positions 22-25 for the remainder of the race. He took the checkered flag in 23rd position. The finish places Bobby Hamilton in 13th place in the season long point’s championship race, 19 points out of 10th position.

“We didn’t run as well as we wanted to today and then we didn’t get the break we needed on the cautions,” Hamilton said. “We know what we have to work on to get The Team Smithfield Ford up into the top-ten next week in Bristol. I am excited to head back to Tennessee for next Saturday’s race.”

Matt Kenseth captured the victory on Saturday, leading fellow Cup driver Kevin Harvick to the checkered flag.