Musgrave, No. 9 Team ASE Toyota Finish 18th at Dover
Musgrave, No. 9 Team ASE Toyota Finish 18th at Dover International Speedway
Musgrave Fights for 18th Place Finish at Dover; Retains Second in Championship Standings
Dover, Delaware (June 5, 2006) Defending NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Ted Musgrave fought his way to an 18th-place finish in the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota in Friday's AAA Insurance 200 at Dover International Speedway.
Musgrave and his Germain Racing team worked to improve the handling of their truck throughout practice on Thursday afternoon, and when Musgrave was able to run times within a tenth of a second of the leaders, they felt confident in the possibility of pulling off a top-ten finish. But a set of tires that didn't agree with the team's setup sent him tumbling through the field.
By the time the caution waved on lap 164, Musgrave had fallen from a top-12 position to barely being able to hold onto the top 20. A quick change of rubber got the bad set of tires off, but the damage was done. Musgrave couldn't regain the lost track position, and was forced to settle for 18th at the flag.
"It's a low blow when you get a truck that is a tenth off the leader, then you change four tires and you're a second off the pace," said Musgrave. "It was nothing the guys did. We had good pit stops all race long. The No. 9 Team ASE Germain Toyota Tundra was pretty decent from the start. We worked our way up to 12th at one point. We were making the adjustments I needed and we were getting closer and closer. All in all we were looking at a top-10 finish at least, but we got a bad set of tires and my truck was just out of control after that."
Musgrave still holds the second position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings, now 76 points behind leader and Germain Racing teammate Todd Bodine. Musgrave is 35 points ahead of David Reutimann who sits in third place in the standings. Next up for Musgrave and the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota is the Sam's Town 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. Practice and qualifying are scheduled for Thursday June 8, with the 400 kilometer race scheduled for 9:15 P.M. Eastern on Friday June 9. Speed Channel will have the live television broadcast, while Motor Racing Network will have the live radio call on select affiliates nationwide. TruckSeries.com will have complete event coverage, including practice, qualifying, and race updates at www.truckseries.com.
What is Team ASE? In the early days of racing, the driver was often recognized as the main reason for a team's success. Recently, the crew chief and crew have been acknowledged as equally important in creating a winning situation for every race team. A parallel exists between racing and the automotive service industry. Similar to the way a crew chief and crew must deliver a satisfactory product to the driver in order to win the race, an employer and the technicians in a service and repair shop must satisfy the needs of their customer in order to create return business. But what makes TEAM ASE most unique is the level of commitment from our certified technicians involved in the program - both on and off the track. Being competitive on the race track is important to TEAM ASE because ASE is itself a standard of excellence. However, TEAM ASE's success in motorsports is not solely measured by pole position, top- five finishes or by slapping hundreds of decals on racecars. There is much more to the TEAM ASE program. http://www.ase.com - http://www.germainracing.com