NASCAR Trucks: Sprague, Silverado Take 3rd Pole of Year
Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
June 30, 2001JACK SPRAGUE, No. 24 NETZERO PLATINUM SILVERADO, captured his and Chevrolet Silverado¹s third pole position of the 2001 season today and the 16th of his career, breaking a three-way tie for most poles in the series¹ history. He now leads Mike Skinner and Joe Ruttman who each have 15.
SPRAGUE: "I love this track. I loved it when it was wore out and slippery as all get out and they repaved it. It¹s been a good place for us. The Silverado was a little tighter than I would have liked it in qualifying. We just have to try to get to the end of the race and try to win another one." HAS YOUR SEASON TURNED AROUND? "I don¹t know. The truck¹s been fast, and it¹s been fast all year. St. Louis Ted (Musgrave) had me covered. At Martinsville I didn¹t feel like we had a shot at winning. Everywhere else we felt we had a legitimate shot. Last week we had an awesome truck and we had trouble. This is an awesome race team and three-quarters of the way through last year and through the winter Hendrick Motorsports added another team. Now, instead of 10 guys we have 30 guys. They all work on everything. When you have so many people involved and until you have everyone in place it seems like we are having a little bit of trouble. Dennis (Connor, crew chief) and I are clicking better than we ever had. The truck is fast. I think we will be fine. I think they pretty much know where the buck stops. Dennis does a whole lot to run this deal. There¹s a lot of pressure to do what he does all week and go to the track and be crew chief. It¹s aging him fast."
RICKY HENDRICK, NO. 17 GMAC SILVERADO (sixth, first rookie): "The truck was tight. Jack¹s on the pole. He¹s been fast ever since we got here. I have to work harder as a driver. We seemed to be tight everywhere we go and we can¹t quite fix it. We have to try something different to fix the problem we have. At the beginning of the year we didn¹t have this problem. You look at Homestead, we didn¹t have the problems we are having now. I don¹t think it¹s the new tire; though it¹s probably part of it. I think we have to try some more with the setup to try to fix the problem. My hat¹s off to Jack and the guys. I¹m happy for them. Jack has been doing this a long time. He and Dennis have a lot of years of doing this. When you are in the same boat and you have the same guys and the same trucks off the shelf, the problem is between myself and my crew chief. It¹s not between the vehicles or the motors because they¹re making it work and we¹re getting the same exact stuff. Jack¹s third in points, we¹re fourth in points. That¹s cool. We are sitting right with them, which says we are doing our job somewhere or another. We need to pick up and get back."
TRAVIS KVAPIL, NO. 60 CAT RENTAL STORES SILVERADO (seventh. Travis is a "local" driver, hailing from Janesville, Wis.): IT¹S YOUR ŒHOME TRACK¹ BUT HAVE YOU EVER DRIVEN HERE BEFORE? "Not at all. This is the first time I have been on this track. It¹s definitely all new to me. It¹s nice to be back home with all my friends and family, but it¹s a new race track like just about every one has been this year." ON THE QUALIFYING RUN: "That¹s the fastest we went since we have been here. We are pleased with that. We made a bunch of changes after practice, before qualifying. We got it going in the right direction. We have to sneak back up to our changes a little bit. It was tight all morning. I couldn¹t get it to turn too good. In qualifying we were a little too loose. We will make some changes and we should be pretty good for happy hour."
LANCE NORICK, NO. 90 AVENTIS BEHRING CHOICE SILVERADO (eighth): "John Monsam came on full-time Monday at the shop. After last week we had a good meeting at the shop with the guys. We were pumped up with the way the Silverado ran last week. We had a seventh place finish here last year. Ever since we got here this morning the truck felt really good. We made minor changes. We will have about 200 people here who are part of ŒVictory Lane Kids¹ (local children with hemophilia and their families). Maybe we can put it in the top five and give everybody a good show."
COY GIBBS, NO. 20 MBNA SILVERADO (10th): "We were faster than that in practice. I tightened it up too much. It will be all right. I¹d rather be in the top five, especially here where it¹s so hard to pass. Last year here I wrecked on my own in turn one; destroyed it. It¹s not been friendly to me."
MATT CRAFTON, NO. 88 FASTTRACK DRIVEWAY SEALER SILVERADO (12th): "We¹re not where we want to be. We were a lot better in practice. We made changes, at the end of the first lap we had an electrical fire. Our second lap was our best lap, even though the Silverado was filling up with smoke. It was definitely an exciting second lap. We will see how we are in happy hour. We have been fighting a tight truck all day, but in qualifying we were real loose. We will know where to build from here and try to find somewhere in between." WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK? In the first half of the race I felt real sick. I wasn¹t hot or physically exhausted, but I felt really sick in my stomach. I drank a little bit of water, but that made it worse. In the last half we made changes on the truck. We were a little ways off. We squeaked by with a 10th. But, I had a root canal two days ago and my face is twice the size now. I have a big old knot in my chin. It¹s real, real sore. The helmet doesn¹t help it any."
DENNIS SETZER, NO. 46 ACXIOM/COMPUTER ASSOCIATES SILVERADO (winner in Memphis last week, qualified 16th here): "It¹s terrible. As bad as you can imagine. The Silverado is tight in the center of the corner. It¹s pushing. We¹re missing something right in the center of the corner. We¹re still working. I think we will race pretty good. If we fix the part in the center we will race great."
RANDY TOLSMA, NO. 61 TEAM RENSI MOTORSPORTS SILVERADO (21st): "We just struggled. Miwaukee has always been a very good race track for me. I have had the outside pole for the last two years, I think. We can¹t find what we need here. We are still looking. The positive side is that by race time we will have certainly improved ourselves. The Silverado was loose on entry, loose on exit and tight in the center. It wasn¹t a comfortable truck anywhere. We will make a lot of changes, try to improve it. That¹s all we can do."
Text provided by Judy Stropus
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