Texas Mess to Musgrave
RacingOne Staff
Posted Friday, November 2, 2007
Ted Musgrave inherited the victory in Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Silverado 350 at Texas Motor Speedway when Chad McCumbee triggered a multi-truck crash on an attempted green-white-checkered finish.
McCumbee was in the lead as the field took the green in the overtime attempt. But McCumbee spun his wheels on the restart and then swirved to try and block second place Jack Sprague.
Sprague made contact with the rear of McCumbee's machine and both crashed hard into the wall with several trucks piling up behind them.
"He spun his tires, I didn't spin, he spun and that caused a big 'ole mess,'" said Sprague, who earlier in the dayannounced he would join Kevin Harvick's truck operation next season. "I should have finished third, had a chance to win, should have finished second and end up finishing sixth."
The melee ended the race and gave the win to Musgrave, who snapped a 66 race winless drought. The veteran scored his 17th career series win.
"It's a good truck and we got it mixed up on the pit stop strategy and it came to us," said Musgrave, who will join a new team in 2008. "It could be the start of good things to come. We're getting things put back together with my sponsor to try to get it back into victory lane a few more times.
"I kept my head up and was able to get through it."
Brendan Gaughan followed Musgrave across the finish line for second with Mike Skinner, Mike Bliss and Rick Crawford rounding out the top five.
Sprague, Matt Crafton, Jon Wood, Jason Leffler and Tim Sauter completed the first ten.
The overtime was set-up by a dramatic incident that involved series point leader Ron Hornaday and Skinner.
The pair made contact racing through turn three just after being passed for the lead by McCumbee with three laps to go.
The contact spawned a multi-truck crash that forced NASCAR to red flag the race.
Skinner was able to finish third while Hornaday was credited with an 18th place finish. Skinner now leads by 57 points with two races remaining this season.
“Big picture-wise we are better off with the way things turned out than if I had won the race,” said Skinner. “If I had won, Hornaday was going to finish second and I would not have the margin I do now.”
Hornaday wasn't as gracious.
"Another Chevrolet made it three-wide and when he came in there it got us loose," Hornaday said. "We'll take our wounds and move on with two to go. I see they are playing games now. They put in a second truck and all he did was block.
"Now, we know how the game is going to be played."
The Craftsman Truck Series now heads to Phoenix International Raceway next Friday night.
