Sprague Back in Form at New Hampshire

LOUDON, NH – Jack Sprague was back in form at New Hampshire International Speedway. Sprague quickly established he was going to be a force with which to be reckoned in the #16 Chevy Trucks Silverado by posting one of the fastest times in the only practice session for the Sylvania 200 prior to NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series qualifying.

He followed up the strong practice run by setting on the pole for the fifth time this season with a new NHIS track record. It was the 25th career pole for Sprague and his third at NHIS.

“I wasn’t sure that lap would hold because I lost about 100 RPMs and we didn’t really have the oil temperature up to quite where it should have been but Steve (Park) was good to us and didn’t quite have enough to knock us off the pole. The truck feels really strong for tomorrow’s race. The Chevy Trucks Silverado team worked mostly on race setup during practice but were happy with our bonsai runs. We were fifth in practice this morning so I figured we could pick up a little but Travis (Kvapil) was awfully strong too. Starting position is really important here because this is such a technical track that it is pretty tough to pass. You just don’t want to get too far back in the field so you have to be in a position to pass a lot of trucks to get back to the front.”

Once the residual rains and winds moved our of the area, Saturday’s race got underway after being delayed for over four hours waiting for the weather to clear and ran under the green/yellow flags for the first 36 laps to finish the drying process. When the race went green on lap 37 of the scheduled 200, Sprague put the Chevy Trucks Silverado in the lead and stayed there for 20 circuits of the one-mile flat oval.

“We started getting tight in the center off,” Sprague explained. “After Hmiel got by us for the lead about lap 60 or so, we needed to make some adjustments to help the handling. It helped but we were still not quite right. Dave (Fuge, team manager) made some great calls on pit strategy all race long. We kept making stops when we could to make the adjustments we needed and gain track position near the end of the race, especially with fuel strategy.”

The next stop under caution, Sprague came in running sixth but a miscue in the pits sent him back to action in 19th. As the race unfolded, the Chevy Trucks Silverado kept delivering on the track and Sprague made his way back up through the field.

On lap 136, Sprague and the team suffered a scare when the engine developed a miss. Despite switching boxes, nothing changed and the miss continued for several laps. Suddenly, after about 10 to 15 laps, the miss disappeared and in Sprague’s words, ‘This truck Is “bad” fast.’

By lap 180, the race enjoying the longest green-flag run of the day, Sprague was back to fifth and picking off the front-runners one-by-one. A brief yellow slowed the field on lap 185 as NASCAR officials knew they were also racing darkness.

Shortly after the green flag flew on lap 188, trucks began running out of fuel being forced to come down pitroad for a splash and go pitstop. Sprague moved into second in the running order and began to run down eventual winner Travis Kvapil.

On lap 199, the caution flew for an accident in turn four. At that time NASCAR made the decision to end the race because of darkness rather than clean up the track and run a green-white-checkered finish.

“We had a miss around lap 13,” Sprague concluded. “But about 10 laps later when we had the next yellow, it went away. The motor ran great, the Chevy Trucks Silverado ran great, We had them big. With three to go, we were really gaining on Travis and I think we could have caught him. We had one bad stop today, which really put us back in the field, but we worked our way back up and at the end of the race, the truck was pretty awesome. I could see I was mowing ‘em down and I really thought I was going to get him. We didn’t need that last caution but I was one of the drivers who said it was too dark to continue knowing we would finish second. You just couldn’t see out there anymore. We would have been ok without the last yellow with just three laps to go but once there was the big wreck, there was no way to get it cleaned up and be safe enough to race. It just doesn’t make any sense to wreck any more trucks or hurt anyone.”

Sprague heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the next NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event back in the top-ten in points. The Las Vegas 350, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, NV on September 25 (350K/219M/146L). The race will take the green flag at 7:00 pm PST and will be broadcast live on the SPEED Channel and radio coverage will begin on MRN at 6:30 pm PST.