NASCAR Trucks: Sprague on cruise control, wins his and Chevy's first of 2001
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
June 9, 2001
Cruise control is not an option on Jack Sprague's NetZero Platinum Chevy Silverado racing pickup truck, but you wouldn't know it from his performance tonight in the 167-lap O'Reilly 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. Sprague collected Chevrolet's 81st win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, more than any other manufacturer (52 percent), but it was the first win of the season for the two-time series champion and for Chevrolet.
Sprague passed fellow Chevy Silverado racer Travis Kvapil on the 123rd lap and never looked back, as he handily held off Brendan Gaughan's Dodge and David Starr's Chevy Silverado to take his first win since June of 2000 and Chevy's first victory since last fall's race here in Texas.
Points leader and "polesitter" Dodge driver Scott Riggs held a strong lead over Sprague in the early laps, then crashed on lap 30, opening the door for both Terry Cook's Ford and Sprague's Chevrolet to take turns leading with Dodge drivers Ted Musgrave and Joe Ruttman. Sprague nearly gave the race away as he ran out of gas on lap 98, but managed to make it back to the pits to get refueled without losing a lap. Sprague's margin of victory over second-place Gaughan was 4.669 seconds.
For the first time in six of the nine races this season, the roles were reversed, as Dodge was relegated to second place, while Chevrolet grabbed the win. While Dodge had won every race until today, Chevrolet had finished second six times, third once and fifth once.
Sprague won his 20th career Truck race and broke a 22-race victory drought. Chevrolet also ended Dodge's eight-race win streak. Dodge and Chevrolet remain tied for the longest win streak in the series.
Sprague led for 54 laps, Kvapil (No. 60 Cat Rental Stores Silverado) for 19 -- the only two Silverados to lead.
SPRAGUE: "Winning here at Texas is really special. When we started racing here at Texas we ran good, sat on poles and led a lot, but never won. We kind of got off our game here for a while and were terrible. Last fall we got it all back together and were awesome again and I got loose trying to go around Andy Houston down in turn one, the truck got away from me and I wrecked. The NetZero Chevrolet Silverado has driven great ever since we got here, but this is the last place in the world under the circumstances we were dealt with -- the way the Dodge rules are and the new carburetor -- that I ever thought I¹d win.
"Last night in happy hour I was flat footing it around this place and the Dodges were still a half second faster, but as the race went on and the tires wore down, the downforce that we had on my Silverado -- you know it has a lot more drag -- the truck stuck and it handled, while the Dodges started slipping around because they do have less downforce and drag under the current rules. Fortunately it played into our hands, nothing went wrong, the guys in the pits did an awesome job and we didn¹t lose anything there, and it all just worked out to our advantage.
"I did have one scare, I ran out of gas going down into turn one with about 60 laps to go, had to coast down the back stretch and pit for fuel. I thought I got a lap down, but we weren¹t. I asked Dennis (Connor, crew chief) if we were a lap down and we he said we weren¹t. I said cool, we¹re OK. The last caution bunched us all back up, so I didn¹t have to chase them down and that worked to our advantage on the fuel situation. At the end, I came back around after taking the checkered flag and did a burnout, and ran out of gas, so it was extremely close. They¹d told me that I didn¹t have to conserve fuel after our last stop, but the last 10 laps I had a four-second lead, so I was running around here about half throttle. It¹s a good thing I did, because if not, we probably wouldn¹t have made it.
"I want to thank the GMAC guys and all the guys at Hendrick Motorsports. Ricky¹s done a great job all year and the guys on this team all work really hard. This is one team that runs two trucks. The trucks are all built the same and the only thing that differentiates the two trucks are the colors and the stickers. We¹ve got around 30 guys on this team that really work hard, and I¹m here tonight because they do.
"We¹re the only team in the garage area that¹s been racing the Dodges all year and we¹ve had three or four opportunities to win and we didn¹t capitalize on them. A couple of those were our own fault and others were just circumstances. It¹s not like we haven¹t been able to race them, but it¹s a lot harder for me to do what I¹m doing than for them to do what they¹re doing.
"Winning here at Texas is a big relief. At least now it will get the reporters off my back saying when are you going to win again."
DAVID STARR, No. 3 CHASCO CONTRACTING CHEVROLET: Local favorite finished third in the same truck that took Jim Sauter and Bryan Reffner to Chevy's only two victories at Texas Motor Speedway in the Craftsman Truck Series. This was his best career finish in the series. Starr has driven 44 races, including today's, but had never finished higher than 11th: "I would have loved to have won the race. I was trying as hard as I could. I'm excited for third, but really wanted to win. We just put this team together two and a half weeks ago. These guys really didn't have a pit stop. This was their first one. Everybody did an awesome job. I'm just excited to be back. It seems like we had to come through the field all night. We worked our way up to the front and then had to make a pit stop. We gained a lot of positions when we stayed out on a caution, but all night long we played catch-up. We started in the back. We were moving forward. Every time we moved forward we had to make a pit stop. We got out of sequence in the pit stops. We had a great Silverado; we just needed a break and we never got a break. We had a long run at the end. Our truck was awesome; we just came up a couple of spots short. I'm just glad to be back." WILL YOU RUN ANY MORE TRUCK RACES? "We will run five or six truck races and a couple of Busch races. I'm glad to finish third, but I wanted to win so bad. If you can't finish first you have to finish as close to that as possible."
RICKY HENDRICK, N0. 17 NETZERO PLATINUM SILVERADO (fifth, first rookie): "I feel like we really had a shot at winning the race and that's what really hurts. We were clearly fast, sometimes we were the fastest truck on the race track. We cost ourselves the win in the pits. We will go back to the shop and work through our mistakes, pick ourselves up and look forward to Memphis. The guys of Team GMAC work so hard; I just wanted more for them. We did everything we could. They got the No. 17 GMAC Silverado running much better than it was for practice or happy hour. We will take our fifth-place finish, but I wouldn't be a racer if I didn't want more. If you think you have a 12th-place truck and you finish fifth, it's great, but if you think you have a shot at the win or second, fifth place hurts. We moved up in the points and in rookie standings and we are very proud of that. We just wanted more. It was a great win for Jack. He was long overdue."
DENNIS SETZER, NO. 46 ACXIOM/COMPUTER ASSOCIATES SILVERADO (sixth, his best finish of the year and best finish on an oval for the Morgan-Dollar Motorsports team): IS THIS SOMETHING TO BUILD ON? "Well, definitely so. We should have had a better finish than this before now, but we've had some driver errors and mechanical problems earlier in the season. Now we have something to build on because this is not as good as the team can be. The team has constantly been rebuilding all year and now we are starting to see the results of a team coming together. We are excited for Acxiom, Computer Associates and Chevrolet. It was an overall good day for us."
COY GIBBS, NO. 20 MBNA SILVERADO (seventh): "We had a little tire deal. We messed up with the tires on the last run. It just didn't go the right way. It was my fault. I was just letting the pressures down too much. We're getting better. It was a good run, but we are a lot better than we were tonight. That's what frustrates me."
RANDY TOLSMA, NO. 61 TEAM RENSI MOTORSPORTS SILVERADO (eighth): NOT A BAD DAY: "Not as good as Jack's. It was a good finish for the Team Rensi Silverado. We had a good handling truck all day long. It was a little aero tight on older tires. We wanted a top 10 finish after two bad finishes for team morale and confidence. We have good tracks with Memphis and Milwaukee coming up and that should be good for us. It was a great race, and I'm real proud of the guys in the series. It was good to see a Chevrolet in the winner's circle. Jack drove a great race and he deserves the win."
TRAVIS KVAPIL, NO. 60 CAT RENTAL STORES SILVERADO (11th, led 19 laps after opting not to pit with other leaders on lap 103 but had to pit under green for fuel at lap 136): "We honestly thought that we had good strategy going. We really didn't expect that anybody could make over 60 laps on fuel. They did. Once we pitted under green we were hoping it would go green the rest of the way and it did. We felt for sure everyone else would come in under green or stretch it out and run out of gas. I think the No. 1 and 29 ran out. We had a good truck, we led some laps, ran up front. We were a little disappointed with our finish. We thought we did what we wanted to do to win and the gamble just didn't pay off."
MATT CRAFTON, NO. 88 FASTTRACK DRIVEWAY SEALER SILVERADO (16th): "Around lap 63 I felt the motor start to go. During our second pit stop of the night, we discovered we had a short in the plug wire. We had a good truck, the best we ever had. I wish we could have run on eight cylinders instead of seven. We look forward to coming back here."
Text provided by Judy Stropus
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