Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Park’s truck crew still working out the kinks

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Steve Park, driver of the Las Vegas-based Orleans Racing Dodge in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, wasn't thrilled with his crew's performance during last Friday's race at Dover International Speedway.

Park put together his best qualifying effort (third) of the season, but some bad adjustments to the truck and a poor pit stop took him out of contention for the victory.

"We just dialed ourselves out," Park said after finishing 13th in the race. "We had a good truck in the beginning (and) I thought we had something for these guys. We got messed up in the pits. We made adjustments that weren't that good. Then we pitted and ended up two laps down, and I don't know how in the hell that happened."

Park and the Orleans Racing team heads to Texas Motor Speedway for Friday night's O'Reilly 400K. Although the team has won four consecutive races at the Texas track (with Brendan Gaughan as the driver), Park said his team's performance last weekend wasn't exactly a confidence booster.

"It doesn't make me look forward to going to Texas," Park said. "Brendan has won four races down there. It started looking like we had a bright spot but if we run like that in the (Texas) race, we're going to be in bad shape."

Park climbed from 21st to 19th in the points as a result of his third top-15 finish of the season, but he still is looking for his first top-10 finish of the season.

Busch recorded his seventh top-five finish in 14 races and holds a 13-point lead over Martin Truex Jr. going into Saturday's race at Nashville Superspeedway. Busch, 19, has been the highest-finishing rookie in 13 of the 14 races this season and holds a commanding lead over Paul Menard in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings.

Inglebright, a NASCAR Southwest Series veteran, will fill in for Johnny Sauter, who will be competing in the Busch Series race at The Milwaukee Mile that weekend.

Inglebright, 43, has eight Southwest Series victories in 96 starts, including three consecutive victories at Infineon Raceway from 2000 to 2002. He made his only Nextel Cup start in the 2002 race at Infineon and finished 32nd.

Other winners included Stoney Gray (IMCA Modifieds), Dustin Ash (Semi-Pro Legends Cars), Rick Rochell (Thunder Roadsters), Austin Murphy (Bandolero Cars) and Artie White (Bullring Bombers). Rochell was declared the Thunder Roadsters winner after the top three finishers in Saturday's main event were disqualified for using illegal fuel.

Two Late Models main events, IMCA Modifieds, Chargers, Legends Cars, Thunder Roadsters and Bandolero Cars are on this Saturday night's racing card at The Bullring.