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Tuesday, July 3
Team salvaged 11th-place finish
By Dennis Setzer
Special to ESPN.com
When you win it is one of the most amazing feelings you could ever imagine. Being able to celebrate with 15 guys you work week in and week out with. Watching them finally get rewarded for the 20-hour days they put in, the weekends away from their families. The Morgan/Dollar Motorsports team I drive for worked five years to get that first win, so it was a special afternoon in Memphis.
Just like that the celebration and the spotlight gets washed away as you enter a new track in an attempt to do it all over again. We headed to the Milwaukee Mile last weekend for the GNC Live Well 200. I have had some success at Milwaukee so we felt good about our chances for a top-5 run or even another trip to Victory Lane. Those thoughts were just that, however, as we struggled from the second we unloaded.
|  | | Setzer is currently ninth in the CTS points standings. |
The truck we brought to Milwaukee was the very same truck we raced last weekend in Memphis. The truck nicknamed "Kenny" after the South Park cartoon character was awesome last weekend, it was fast off the corner and I could drive it in deep with out getting on the brakes to hard. In Milwaukee I would drive into the corner and have a major push in the center and slip up towards the wall.
I thought we were practicing Race Setup 101 on Friday morning as we attempted to set the truck up for qualifying. Danny Gill our crew chief threw every change he knew how to make at the thing and nothing would help it turn. We changed springs, shocks, air pressure, sway bars, track bar; I think we did an entire season worth of changes in two hours. When your struggling to find the setup you have to keep trying things until you find something that works. More often than not, the littlest change makes a major difference on the handling of the truck.
By the time qualifying rolled around we were still chasing. We felt like we had a top-15 truck and slipped a little from that qualifying in the 16th position. Happy Hour came and it was back to changing the setups. We got a little bit faster finishing Happy Hour as the 10th quickest truck.
Danny and I usually set aside after the last practice and try and discuss things that will make us stronger on race day. You could visibly see the frustration in Danny's eyes as he was trying to figure out how to help the truck. Danny is a very focused crew chief, he spends a lot of time trying to make the truck faster and this problem was not getting any better. As we headed back to the hotel Danny went to his hotel room and went straight to work. Saturday morning he had a completely new setup that he felt would help us turn.
As most teams prepared their trucks for the race, the last minute nut and bolt checks, the Acxiom/Computer Associates crew was busy disassembling and then reassembling the entire bottom of our truck. I think they changed the shocks two or three different times because Danny felt he thought of something that might work better.
Once the race started I knew after only a couple of laps that nothing was better. We were still very tight and although I picked up a few spots the first couple of laps I was stuck in the top-15 for most of the race. Each pit stop we tried something else, lots of air pressure and track bar adjustments hoping we could make it better.
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I have had some success at Milwaukee so we felt good about our chances for a top-5 run or even another trip to victory lane. Those thoughts were just that, though, as we struggled from the second we unloaded.
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— Setzer |
It's hard to go out and race when you know you are not anywhere near competing for the win. Last week we were the class of the field, I could step out and pass anytime I wanted to. This weekend was one of those times when you just had to sit back and try and get the best possible finish you could. We did that coming home in 11th.
The finish was good enough to move us from 10th in points to ninth. Sometimes when you have those rough days you just go out and ride around, several of the guys higher in the standings struggled and we gained on them. Overall were chasing a championship, so anything we can gain on that is going to help the cause.
Were heading to the new Kansas Speedway this weekend, a lot faster 1½-mile oval. The track is almost in the backyard of Morgan/Dollar Motorsports, which is based, only five hours south of the speedway so were going to have a lot of friends and family there this weekend. I hope we can put on a good show for them, and return to the way we were two weeks ago and throw last weekends setup in the garbage.
Dennis Setzer, driver of the No. 46 Acxiom/Computer Associates Chevrolet for Morgan/Dollar Motorsports in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, will provide a diary to ESPN.com throughout the 2001 season. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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