Musgrave outduels Sprague in truck race

Monday, Oct. 15, 2001 | 11:41 a.m.

Ted Musgrave knew that Jack Sprague had the fastest truck Sunday, so he was going to have to find another way to win in the closing laps of the Orleans 350 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Musgrave scooted past Sprague on a restart with 16 laps remaining and held on to win his sixth race of the season before a crowd estimated at 15,000.

"That last restart, I said to myself that we're running the same speed, we're running the same line (and) the only way I'm going to get around him is to go where he's not going to think I'm going to go," Musgrave said.

"That was the only move I made all day and that's what won the race."

Actually, it wasn't the only move the 45-year-old Musgrave made. After qualifying 10th, Musgrave was forced to start the race at the back of the pack when his team elected to change engines in his Team Mopar Dodge before the race.

Sprague, who increased his lead in the championship to 97 points over Joe Ruttman, led 104 of 146 laps and clearly had the truck to beat. Although he helped himself in his quest for a third series championship, Sprague clearly was not happy with his runner-up finish.

"It's really disgusting to sit here and know we didn't win this race," said Sprague, the race pole-sitter and a two-time winner at LVMS. "We definitely had their butts kicked all day."

Sprague suggested he had the championship in mind when Musgrave got past his Chevy on the bottom of the track in Turn 2 on the restart, but he didn't sound very convincing.

"You've got to take a different frame of mind when you're in a championship battle," Sprague said. "That's the situation we're in; we're looking at the big picture.

"We did what we had to do but we're still a little bit disappointed because we killed them all day and we didn't win the race."

Rookie Travis Kvapil was third in a Dodge, Rick Crawford took fourth in a Ford and Scott Riggs, in a Dodge, rounded out the top five. Las Vegas native Kyle Busch, who started third, tied his career-best finish in the Truck Series with a ninth-place showing and Brendan Gaughan, another Las Vegas native, was 11th.

That Musgrave even was in contention for the win in the closing laps was a feat in itself considering his start at the back of the 36-truck field.

"In the Craftsman Truck Series, one of the rules states that the motor you qualify with is the motor you have to race with," Musgrave said. "But the motor we practiced and qualified with wasn't acting right and I was afraid that it was going to maybe have some trouble in the race.

"With the points situation the way it was, I told (my crew) we will change the motor ... and take the penalty to start the race."

Musgrave credited the 1.5-mile track for allowing him to make his way through the field without incident.

"This racetrack is so nice, so wide, so big ... I said to myself that the penalty is well worth making sure that (the engine) is going to run all day and, sure enough, it didn't take too long and we worked our way to the front."

Musgrave worked his way into the top 10 after only 32 laps and stayed in the top five for the remainder of the race.

Kvapil, who won his first race Oct. 5 at Texas Motor Speedway, struggled through qualifying and practice and said he had a good setup to start the race, then made too many changes to his Cat Rental Chevy.

"We were really good at the start of the race," Kvapil, who started 14th, said. "I think more than anything we got a little greedy and we just tried to get the chassis real good and try to go for the win and the truck just got really way too loose.

"We were able to pit again and get the Silverado back to where we started the race ... and we were able to come back from ninth, tenth and drive all the way up to third."

Musgrave won with an average speed of 128.090 mph and his margin of victory was .906 seconds. The race was slowed by four cautions flags for 17 laps.