TEAM REPORTS (TEXAS) - Musgrave, No. 9 Team ASE Toyota Finish 1st at Texas
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"This is probably the best truck I've had as far as driving-wise wise and stuff." said Musgrave after qualifying third on Thursday evening in the Lone Star state, I even came across the radio after my (qualifying) lap and said it must be slow because it drove so well and they said 'no' - you're actually third quickest."
Hunting for his 17th truck series win, Musgrave raced up front with point leader Mike Skinner in the No. 5 Toyota, but an early pit stop for fuel and tires put the Team ASE Toyota out of synch with the race leaders.
"We were a little different on the sequence of pit stops and the tire wear. I led a lot of laps and then the 5 (Mike Skinner) got by me and he's running for a championship. So, we wanted to keep our nose clean and I was hoping we could race him back. Then, the caution didn't come out and we had to stop for fuel early." said Ted Musgrave after winning his first truck series race of the 2007 season.
Musgrave led early, but fell back as the race and the tires on his Team ASE Toyota wore on. Musgrave steered clear of several accidents that produced 23 caution laps. When co-leaders Chad McCumbee and Jack Sprague tangled on a single attempt at a green-white-checker finish, Musgrave acquired the lead as the seventh, race- ending yellow flag came out to close the event under caution.
Musgrave snapped a frustrating 66-race winless streak that reached back to Gateway International Raceway in 2005, the same year the Franklin, Wisconsin native won the NCTS driver championship.
"We've had a few of these stolen away from us here," Musgrave said, It's a sweet victory to come back and have something like that fall in my hands where I had a little luck. Now I can finally say I won at Texas after so many tries. I was just hoping for a top-five (near the end), but if you play your cards right, sometimes it comes to you."
Musgrave was recently paired with newly appointed Crew Chief Mike Abner who found himself celebrating in Texas' victory lane in only his second race as leader of the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota crew.
"I get two more shots at it. Mike (Abner, crew chief) is doing a heck of a job and the guys are pumped up." Musgrave proclaimed, "We're running good and hopefully we'll be able to get them again in Phoenix."
Next up for Ted Musgrave and the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota will be the Casino Arizona 150 at Phoenix International Raceway on November 9, 2007. SPEED will have live NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series coverage starting at 8:00 PM Eastern Time and MRN Radio on select affiliates nationwide. TruckSeries.com will have complete event coverage including practice, qualifying, and race updates online 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.