TEAM REPORTS (INDIANAPOLIS) - MUSGRAVE/ASE FINISH 12TH

Ted Musgrave was gunning for a top-ten finish in the Power Stroke Diesel 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at O'Reilly Raceway Park, but a late-race caution and green-white-checkered shootout at the finish resulted in a 12th-place finish for the veteran driver of the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota.

"Usually when we have one of those green-white-checkered finishes I can pick up a couple of positions, but this time we gave up a couple of spot," Musgrave said. "We restarted tenth, and I saw Brendan (Gaughan) coming and I ran the middle lane to try to block as much of the track as I could. He ended up getting his nose beside me and took the high groove and got past me. Then on the last lap (Mike) Bliss went to the low side and we raced pretty hard. He had a real good truck to be able to run that low lane like that. We had a good drag race off the last corner, and he ended up just barely beating me to the line."

The race started nearly two hours late due to persistent rain throughout the day that forced NASCAR officials to set the starting grid by the rule book after qualifications were canceled. Musgrave believes the inclement weather played a role in how clean the racing was throughout the night.

"I think everyone did a great job racing very clean," Musgrave said. "We saw some beating and banging but that was just short track racing. As we were leaving, I noticed we didn't have nearly as much bent and wrecked equipment as we usually do here. Sometimes you get that when there's a long rain delay. The guys really used their heads because I don't think any of us wanted to come back and race on Sunday morning. It was such a clean race; I don't think I even had a single really close call all night long."

The rain left the track "green", with a lack of rubber laid down in the racing groove. Musgrave and his crew chief Rick Gay made some minor adjustments early on to adjust for what they knew would be a usual tight condition at ORP.

"The rain really didn't throw us a curveball as far as track conditions were concerned," Musgrave said. "We made a small track bar adjustment on the first stop. It just tightened up, just like we expected it would. I don't think the rain really had much effect at all on track conditions."

With a week off between the ORP race and the next series event at Nashville on August 11, Musgrave and the Germain Racing team plan to stay busy - with some work and some recreation.

"Toyota is going to bring us to Richmond for some testing this week," Musgrave said. "Once we get through that, I think we're going to have a big pool party at the house for my guys. They've worked really hard this year and they deserve it. We've already made the flyers for it and everything; it's going to be a big deal. Then we'll get ready to head to Nashville."