Chris finished eighth in Harrington, forced to ride a semi, which is a rare occurrence for the three-time champ. The Ford QCCPOV team struggled all night trying to chase down the setup on the ever-changing limestone surface of the half-mile in Delaware, finally getting close in the main, but with a third row start the front-runners were too far away to catch.
"The heat race was terrible for us. I got a decent start, was running behind Joe Kopp, and was racing with Springer. Kopp kind of got away from me about halfway through the race, Springer got by me, and on one of the last laps, Dominic Beaulac - a real good pea gravel specialist from Canada - got by me. Those guys were going good - we ended up fourth and were headed to the semi.
"The semi seemed to work out really good for us, we got a really good start. The track was drying up, and it had pretty much lost its cushion at that time. We got a good run through there and won that handily and had a third row start for the main event. Things were starting to go our way.
"Lined up for the main event - they had gone out and put a bunch of water on the track and dug it up as best they could. When you're starting on the third row in pea gravel, you've got to cut a really good lap first couple of laps in order to have any shot at winning.
"We just weren't able to do that. The first start, we got a good run going and we were in eighth or ninth after the first lap. Red flag came out a couple laps in because Chris Evans had gone down.
"We couldn't duplicate that restart the second time. I was back towards the back. We did the best we good to head toward the front. We ended up getting eighth. Got a gift with (Steve) Beattie having a little problem there toward the end of the race. He was barely able to hold onto his motorcycle because his handlebar mounts came loose. We were actually about as fast as the leaders in the last five laps of the race but, too little, too late.
"That's the way it goes."