Chad Ogle
Going into this weekend’s Carolina Clash race at the Volunteer Speedway, one driver will be riding a wave of confidence based on his most recent outing with that series on that track. Chad Ogle turned in a dominating performance on April 4th in Bulls Gap, Tenn. when he set fast time in qualifying then went on to lead every lap of the regional touring series event on the high banked track.
The win was the first feature victory for the Sevierville, Tenn. driver in quite some time, and it came after he and his team made a significant change during the most recent off season. Ogle switched to a Rocket Chassis and is liking the feel of the new machine so far.
“It felt really good,” Ogle said of the triumph. “We’d been thrashing on this new car for a couple of weeks. We came to Smoky Mountain the week before and we found some things with the car to suit me better. Then we tried something a little different at Bulls Gap and it seemed to suit me real well. We’ll stick with it for a little while and see how it goes.
“It was a good morale booster and we’d been needing that for a while,” Ogle added. “It just all worked out.”
Even with the success brought on with the new ride, Ogle is still in the feeling out process with the car after having driven CVR Race Cars for several seasons. But there is one aspect of driving a Rocket that he is finding to be very beneficial.
“I don’t really know yet,” he said about the aspects of the Rocket Chassis that he likes most. “I just know that as far as information wise, I was needing help. With the crate cars, the CVR’s are second to none, but it just wasn’t crossing over to the supers.”
Ogle then enlisted the help of a couple of trusted local racers in making a decision regarding the move to Rocket.
“I felt myself struggling and I talked to David Bryant(Blount Motorsports crew chief) a lot about it and he told there’s so much more information out there about these Rockets,” Ogle explained. “Actually, Mark Douglas’s dad called me and said that Kent Robinson had a 2013 Rocket he was trying to sell and I knew it would be a fresh feeling car because it had just come off the jig. The guy who does setups for Kent has been real helpful and he told me that once you find something that works, you can pretty much unload it like that everywhere.”
Ogle’s new Rocket Chassis
Yet, Ogle was torn in making the move because of his relationship with CVR boss Chip Vineyard.
“My biggest thing wasn’t anything against Chip, I just needed more information,” the driver pointed out. “I talked to him and I think he was alright with it. But I’m tickled that we made that decision. It’s still early in the season, but it’s working out for now.”
As of now, Ogle plans to stay the course of racing in Super Late Model events close to home. But if things continue to progress with the new car, he could find himself in locales a bit further away at some point.
“I’ve felt like I’ve been good at Tazewell and good at the Gap the last few years, but we fell off for some reason at Smoky Mountain,” Ogle said. “But with (Larry)Garner taking over the track and having more big races there, I thought that I had to do something to get better at Smoky because that’s where I’ll be racing the most. I’m hoping the more I learn about this Rocket, the more I can venture off.”
