NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Carquest Auto Parts 420k: Notes
5 November 1997
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Carquest Auto Parts 420K Notes November 9, 1997 DAYTONA BEACH, FL - CBS Television will broadcast the Carquest Auto Parts 420K (live 3 p.m., EST) as the concluding half of a doubleheader which opens with the NASCAR Busch Series Jiffy Lube Miami 300 (live, 12 noon EST) from the Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex. - The Las Vegas Motor Speedway event wraps up the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season with the tour's richest race. Total posted awards have reached $803,019. - Defending race winner Sprague's $79,825 payoff remains the largest in series history. Depending on how various manufacturer awards fall, this year's Carquest Auto Parts 420K winner can break Sprague's record. - Sprague needs $18,576 at Las Vegas to surpass Skinner's single-season race winnings mark of $489,885. A finish of sixth-place or better will do it. - Seven drivers have filed entries for both Carquest Auto Parts 420K and Saturday's companion NASCAR Winston West Series Las Vegas 300K. They are Brett Bodine, Bill Elliott, Kevin Harvick, Kenny Irwin, Ken Schrader, Skinner and Mike Wallace. - Of interest, each of last year's top-12 championship drivers completed all 175 laps of the Carquest Auto Parts 420K. Still, there were two position changes in the final standings: Sprague passed Skinner for the No. 2 spot, while Cintas Rookie-of-the-Year Bryan Reffner supplanted Rick Carelli in ninth-place. - The season's final race will be equally important in setting the final, 1997 standings. Positions four and five, Bliss and Hornaday, are separated by 47 points; six and seven, Carelli and Jay Sauter, by just four; and nine through 11, Bown, Irwin and Butch Miller, by 35. - Here's the current top-10 (with points/wins): 1. Sprague 3,799 (3); 2. Bickle 3,622 (3); 3. Ruttman 3,556 (4); 4. Bliss 3,456 (1); 5. Hornaday 3,409 (7); 6. Carelli 3,311 (0); 7. Sauter 3,307 (1); 8. Hensley 3,267 (0); 9. Bown 3,182 (0); 10. Irwin 3,132 (2). - Three winners from the 1996 NCTS season who still lack a '97 victory get one, final shot in Las Vegas. They are Carelli, Rezendes and Skinner. - The Carquest 420K is the 10th superspeedway event of the 1997 season. Here are some big track stats, through the Nov. 1 GM Goodwrench/Delco Battery 300. - Fords have won all three races held on tracks of 1.5 miles or longer. Top-10 superspeedway finishing positions are closer, by comparison, with Chevrolet on top with 42, followed by Ford's 39 and Dodge with just nine. - The average starting position of the season's six superspeedway winners: 7.6. Two races (spring Phoenix and Fontana) have been won by the Busch Pole winner. - The average finish of the three superspeedway Busch Pole winners (Bliss, Ruttman and Sprague): 7.44. - Irwin, Ruttman and Sprague each have won twice. Sprague owns the most top-five finishes (six) and shares top-10 honors (seven) with Carelli and Ruttman. Five drivers among the current top-10 have at least one DNF, led by Hornaday's three. Hensley is the only one of the 10 without at least one top-five on a superspeedway in 1997. - In other series news...Icehouse Beer will sponsor Tom Gloy Racing and driver Dave Rezendes in 1998. Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, a longtime friend and competitor of Gloy, will co-own the Ford team...W.W. Grainger will back Roush Performance's third series team and its driver, Greg Biffle. Grainger is a manufacturer of industrial equipment and a Roush supplier for 20 years...Liberty Racing will announce its 1998 series plans, and Irwin's successor, in Las Vegas...Hornaday, Randy Tolsma and Mike Wallace will visit patients in the University Medical Center's pediatrics ward on Thursday in Las Vegas...more than a dozen of the tour's top drivers will be signing autographs between seven and 8:30 p.m. (PST) Thursday at the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas...Friendly Ford in Las Vegas will host an autograph party on Friday night, following the LVMS optional test...Chevrolet's $50,000 winner-take-all "Like a Rock Award" will be decided in Las Vegas with three drivers -- Bickle, Carelli, and Sprague -- still in the running for the prize which goes to the Chevrolet competitor completing the greatest number of laps during the 1997 season. Bickle is the leader with 4,460 laps. STAT OF THE WEEK The most telling superspeedway statistic, in 1997, is points scored. Sprague, with 1,345 points, is 58 better than the next-best big track performer, Ruttman, who counts 1,287. Bliss has 1,263, Bickle 1,172 and Hornaday 1,085. "Big Track Jack" leads second-place Bickle by 177 entering the final race with 173 of that margin derived from the nine events held on venues of one-mile or longer. By NASCAR Public Relations