Musgrave Fights to Top-Ten Finish in Kansas

Kansas City, Kansas (April 26, 2008) - Ted Musgrave fought an ill-handling truck all day long but the hard work paid off as he delivered a tenth-place finish in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway. The No. 59 Team ASE/Harris Trucking Toyota gained speed throughout the day and Musgrave was able to pick off a couple of positions in the final laps to give the team its third top-ten finish of the year.

“The front of the truck was bouncing all race long in traffic,” Musgrave said. “It was even worse in traffic. We tried the coil bind setup here for the first time and that’s a situation where you are either right on or you are off by a mile. We were a little off.  But the good thing is we were off and we were fighting for a top ten at the end. We need to go test this truck and work on this setup, and once we get it absolutely figured out we’ll be fighting for top fives and wins.”

Musgrave had a couple of close calls late in the going, but was able to dodge all of the trouble and keep his Toyota Tundra in one piece.

“There was a lot of trouble out there today,” Musgrave said. “There were a couple right in front of me, but we were fortunate enough to miss it. Sometimes it’s about being smart and not getting yourself in trouble, and there were a few guys who weren’t able to do that today.”

Musgrave’s crew chief Danny Rollins could see the problems Musgrave was fighting throughout the race, but was helpless to fix it once the race was underway.

“This coil bind setup is like walking on a razor’s edge,” Rollins said. “When you’re on it you are really good. We were a little off but like Ted said it might as well be a mile. The problem is we never had a chance to really test what we had in traffic. When he pulled up on someone in the race the nose of the truck would bounce all over the place. We never got a chance to run with anyone in practice because every time we pulled up to run with someone they would pull off and come to the garage. It’s just a matter of running this setup in traffic and figuring out what it likes.”

Musgrave moved up one spot to tenth in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings, just two points behind Jack Sprague for ninth and 39 points behind fifth-place Johnny Benson. Musgrave is 148 points behind race winner Ron Hornaday, who now leads the series standings.

Next up for the Musgrave and the HT Motorsports team is the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Round six of the 2008 season will take the green flag shortly after 8 P.M. Eastern on Friday May 16, and will be televised live by SPEED. The race will also be broadcast live on selected affiliates of MRN Radio and will be carried live on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128.