Irwin Ultimate Tradesman wins new truck, $20,000

To be the ultimate anything is quite a feat, as Bruce Quigley found out this past weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.

Quigley bested two other finalists to win the Irwin Ultimate Tradesman Challenge national championship, and in the process won a Roush Performance Supercharged Ford F-150 painted in blue and yellow Irwin colors and a check for $20,000.

Drilling the competition

It could have been a check for $1.26 million, had Quigley picked the right Irwin tool bag from among the 26 lined up on a table. Quigley picked bag No. 13, one of 13 which contained $20,000 checks. Twelve bags had checks for $10,000, and one -- bag No. 14 -- had the big check tucked inside.

That's pretty cool, especially since he topped more than 9,000 other tradesmen to win it.

Here's how it works. A series of events were set up in which tradesmen would battle head-to-head to qualify for three regional competitions at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and California Speedway.

The three winners then went to Phoenix for the finals.

"It definitely would not be possible for us to do this without a vehicle like NASCAR," said Eric Rich, Director of Motorsports & Event Marketing for Irwin Industrial Tools. "We are a fairly new brand, just four-and-a-half years old now, and NASCAR has given us an audience among people who use tools every day, for a living.

"We've been able to take our assets that we use at the track and have been able to mobilize those out to regional events around the race schedule, and we really had a phenomenal event this year."

Of the 145 events the Tradesman Challenge has conducted in 30 states, some of them have followed the race schedule and some have been stand-alone, and more than 50,000 people attended those events, Rich said.

The finalists, using Irwin tape measures, chalk reels and the Speedbor Max spade drill bit, had to measure and drill holes in specific spots, and the winner was the tradesman who was the most accurate and completed the task in the least amount of time.

Quigley, who owns Bruce A. Quigley Construction Co. in Clarkston, Mich., completed the task in 20.40 seconds in the finals, topping Marc Williams from Seattle and Zach Snider from Charlottesville, Va. Snider's time (18.54 seconds) was disallowed because the holes he drilled did not line up.

Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 26 Irwin Ford for Roush Fenway Racing, was on hand as one of the emcees. Former crew chief Jeff Hammond was the other, and he and McMurray competed against each other as part of the pre-competition program. (Continued)