Jack Sprague No. 2 RVs.com Chevrolet San Bernardino County 200 Post-Race Report
FONTANA, Calf. (February 24, 2008)- Two-time Auto Club Speedway winner Jack Sprague came into the second race of the season optimistic. After suffering an early track incident in Daytona, Sprague and team brought a new truck and confident attitude to California. However, as the weekend progressed the team fought a loose-handling truck and was unable to leave the sunshine state with the finish they were looking for. Jack Sprague and the No. 2 RVs.com Chevrolet finished 22nd.
Upon spending the day at track on Thursday the Truck Series teams were the only of NASCAR’s three divisions to get any practice time at all. Sprague and the team unloaded chassis No. 021, a brand new truck, and were really loose from the beginning of the first practice. The team put their heads together and formulated a plan to fix Sprague’s truck as they entered into the final practice for the Truck Series that afternoon.
Final practice proved to be productive for the No. 2 RVs.com team. Making multiple shock, spring and track bar adjustments by the end of practice the team appeared to have hit on a set up that Sprague was comfortable with.
Unfortunately for the No. 2 RVs.com team weather was a hinderance for qualifying, canceling the session. By NASCAR’s rules, the starting field for the San Bernardino County 200 was set based on the 2007 Owner’s Points standings. Jack Sprague took the green from the 30th position.
When the race began spirits were high as Sprague and the No. 2 RVs.com team had decided to slowly ease their way through traffic and bide their time through the 100-lap race.
The first caution of the day occurred early on lap four. With assistance from spotter Andy Houston Sprague managed to weave his way up to the 24th position. Sprague was concerned through the first green-flag sequence that something may be wrong with the brakes. Due to the torrential rain the day before, water had collected on the brakes causing them to vibrate violently until the precipitation dried. After the first few green flag laps the brake problem ceased to be an issue.
After returning to green-flag racing on lap six Sprague radioed the crew that he was a little free off the corner but he believed the truck would come to him. The second caution of the race flew at lap 13. The No. 2 RVs.com team jumped to action while the truck came down pit lane for the first scheduled pit stop of the race. As Sprague made his way into the pit box, he clipped the right front tire (being carried by the tire carrier) of the No. 21 team with the front of the No. 2 RVs.com Chevrolet. The damage resulted in a long pit stop and created a very loose condition on the truck.
Returning to competition in the 18th position. Sprague radioed the crew that the truck was “wicked” loose. Cycling through the next round of green-flag racing Sprague still fought a very loose-handling race truck. On Lap 44 the caution flew for the third time. Sprague told crew chief Ernie Cope that on a loose scale of one to 10 he was an eight. The No. 2 RVs.com crew made a scheduled pit stop for four tire, fuel and major adjustments to tighten up the truck.
At the half-way mark Sprague was running in the 15th position. The adjustments made on the previous stop did not seem to be aggressive enough to solve the extremely loose condition. Sprague tried to hang on as the race went on a long green-flag run.
By lap 75 Sprague had fallen back to the 21st position. As the laps wound down in the San Bernardino County 200 the No. 2 RVs.com team made one final pit stop on lap 82 for four tires, fuel, a major tire pressure and track bar adjustments. Unable to fix the looseness of the truck the No. 2 RVs.com team finished the race in the 22nd position.
“It’s really just a shame,” said Sprague. “We had an extremely fast race truck at the end of practice on Thursday, said Sprague. I was really happy with the feel of the truck. Unfortunately, we were unable to capitalize on what we had. We will take what we learned at this track and use the information to apply to our race trucks to improve them at the other 1.5-mile tracks such as our next event at Atlanta.”
STATS RECAP
Race Info
February 23, 2008
Auto Club Speedway of Southern California
San Bernardino County 200
Race: 2 of 25
Driver: Jack Sprague
Started: 30th
Finished: 22nd
Truck Series Point Standings: 23rd
Next on Schedule:
Date: March 7, 2008
Track: Atlanta Motor Speedway
Event Name: American Commercial Lines 200
Driver: Jack Sprague
Broadcast Time: 8:30 p.m., ET SPEED
Radio: 9 p.m., ET MRN Radio
