The latest weekend of the TORC Series presented by AMSOIL was titled, the Chicagoland Slam, and the event quickly lived up to the title. After Douglas Motorsports ended Thursday night with a podium finish, Friday night ended early due to the “Slam” that was a major component in both PRO-4×4 rounds of racing. Regardless of the outcome Scott Douglas knows his team continues to give him a really fast race truck every time he enters the track.

The mid-week event at Route 66 Raceway was held in conjunction with the NASCAR weekend that was being conducted across the road at Chicagoland Speedway. This saw a solid group of race fans head to the dirt track after watching an afternoon of pavement racing. The scheduling of Rounds 5 & 6 made for a great spectator turnout for the TORC event.

The first practice saw the #7 AMSOIL/Borla Exhaust/Cooper Tire/Walker Evans Racing PRO-4 turn the fastest lap of the session. When it came time for qualifying, the white and black AMSOIL truck continued it’s fast track, with another fastest lap, but due to a caution at the end of the lap, the time was disallowed. This still had Douglas with the second quickest time of the session.

Round 5 saw the PRO-4 races lined up for sixteen laps round the .7-mile temporary circuit that was created on and inside the Route 66 Dirt Track. The starting inversion saw Douglas start from the second row. When the race went green, the AMSOIL PRO-4 was in a heated battle for the lead. There was plenty of pushing and shoving that went on during the first eight laps and it continued after the mandatory caution. Then the race was red flagged when another racer took down the AMSOIL finish line arch. During this time the crew noticed the race truck had cut a tire from all the racing contact. When the race began moving under caution, Douglas headed for the Hot Pits. The Douglas Motorsports crew quickly replaced the tire, but now the #7 Pro-4 was at the tail end of the field.

When the green flag waved for the final seven laps, Douglas really turned up the wick. On lap 12, he set the fastest lap of the night. When the checkered flag was waved, Scott Douglas occupied the final spot on the podium.

Quickly Dan Sunderland and the team went to work prepping the Douglas Motorsports built PRO-4 looking for an even stronger finish next night.

Friday evening saw a sizeable crowd in the Route 66 grandstands as finishing on “Top of the Box” would be the only result that would satisfy Douglas Motorsports.

The start of Round 6 saw plenty of high-speed contact by the time the pack headed for Turn Two. The field was running bumper-to-bumper, door-to-door when disaster struck. As Douglas came through the first right hand turn in the infield portion of the track, there was a bunch of rubbing and pushing that caused Scott Douglas to tangle with another truck and head into the concrete outer wall. If took some time to unravel Ross Hoek from his rear bumper, which brought out a full course caution. Eventually Douglas was able to return to the race, but quickly knew something was wrong in the driveline.

When racing resumed, Scott Douglas could only idle around the track, eventually ending the race well down in the finishing order.

“We had the fastest truck at Chicagoland, but we just didn’t seem to have the luck to survive all the banging and pushing our class seems to dish out,” noted Scott Douglas. “Third place on Thursday was a solid night, especially after the great job my guys did in the Hot Pits, but we wanted the win. Then Friday night all hell broke loose right from the start. All we can do is keep a positive outlook and prepare for Crandon. The high speeds will make a different type of race. It will be exciting to watch so get there if you can or watch the live stream on the Internet. We will get to the top of the podium next weekend.”

The next event on the schedule for Douglas Motorsports is the “Big House Brawl” June 27-28, 2015.

If you can’t get to Crandon for the next rounds of racing, the event will be live on the Internet and streaming free at www.torcseries.com.