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Friday, August 3
Sprague wins second straight
Associated Press
| |  | | | Sprague |
CLERMONT, Ind. -- The only place Jack Sprague was passed was
in the pits.
Sprague took the lead from Joe Ruttman on the first lap, lost it
only after the first round of pit stops, and held off Terry Cook to
win the Power Stroke Diesel 200 on Friday night at Indianapolis
Raceway Park.
"Terry got by Joe there and was running me down pretty good. I
was a little worried," Sprague said of the final laps. "But my
truck had staying power, and then he got a little slower, started
to fade a little bit, so I thought I was in pretty decent shape."
It was Sprague's second straight victory and third of the
season, giving him a 17-point lead over Ruttman after 15 of the 24
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races this season.
Scott Riggs, the series leader going into the race, broke his
rear suspension early in the 200-lap race and was never a factor,
finishing three laps down in 21st place.
Sprague, who won $42,410 from a purse of $436,720, led 149 laps,
including the final 99 laps. He led 183 of 200 laps in winning the
last race at Loudon, N.H., two weeks ago.
"I don't think it was as dominant as it was last race,"
Sprague said. "I mean, Joe and Terry and Ricky (Hendrick) and a
lot of them were running pretty good.
"We changed the right-side tires first and we got a tight and I
was a little worried. But the second stop we changed the lefts and
had like a hundred laps to go and the thing took off, so I knew at
that point I wasn't coming in again."
Hendrick, a rookie and son of Winston Cup car owner Rick
Hendrick, was the leader after 100 laps on the 0.686-mile oval
track before three other rookie drivers -- Jon Wood, Larry Gunselman
and Ron Hornaday III -- collided in the first turn.
All the leaders made pit stops during that yellow caution
period, with Sprague and Ruttman out first, resuming their early
battle. Sprague stayed in front through three more yellows, the
last with 22 laps to go when Hendrick and Lance Norick tangled in
turn one.
The green came out starting the 185th lap, and Sprague beat Cook
to the checkered flag by 1.234 seconds.
"I thought I had something for him," said Cook, whose
runner-up finish was his best of the season. "We had run him down
earlier, and I was really disappointed when that caution came out
with 22 to go. We had caught Jack in a whole bunch of lapped
traffic, and it doesn't get much better than under the lights,
three-wide in lapped traffic, for the lead."
Ruttman was third. Bobby Hamilton, who owns his and Ruttman's
trucks, was fourth, and Travis Kvapil finished fifth.
"We were just maybe a third- or fourth-place truck," Ruttman
said.
"The two trucks that beat us were just faster, working better.
Probably better drivers. Younger, anyway, for sure," the
56-year-old driver said, joking. "Then the boss man (Hamilton)
took it easy on me in the last 10 laps."
Sprague, who averaged 80.745 mph for the victory, led the first
50 laps before the yellow was brought out when Billy Bigley bumped
the wall and spun into Sammy Ragan. All of the leaders made their
first pit stops then, putting Matt Crafton in front. Sprague
dropped back to fourth, moved up to second by the 87th lap and
regained the lead when he came out of the pits first starting the
102nd lap.
"It was a pretty clean race. The track was good, the same old
IRP it's always been. I love this place," said Sprague, who also
won here in 1998.
Sprague now leads Ruttman in the series points 2,317 to 2,300,
with Riggs third at 2,243, 18 points ahead of Kvapil.
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