NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Notes: Cummins 200
5 August 1997
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Cummins 200 By Indiana Dodge Dealers Notes July 31, 1997 CLERMONT, IN - Ron Hornaday's 16th career victory, on July 31 in Indianapolis Raceway Park's Cummins 200 by Indiana Dodge Dealers, matches the number on Teresa Earnhardt's blue NAPA Brakes Chevrolet. - It similarly ties Hornaday for the series all-time win standard, which he shares with Mike Skinner. - Interestingly, Hornaday's 16 victories have come under four different crew chiefs, in chronological order of employment: Doug Richert (seven), Doug Williams (three), John Monsam (one) and Fred Graves (five). Who, you ask, is the winningest crew chief in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series? Hands down, it's Rich Burgess, who wrenched all of Skinner's victories for Richard Childress Racing. - Some could say Graves, winless with Grier Lackey and the Ranier-Walsh teams, was long-suffering until his late-May association with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Others might argue that someone finally gave the New Englander the tools he needed to showcase his mechanical talents. Graves is a no-nonsense, back-to-basics kind of crew chief and it's paying off. "The basics that I'm talking about are basic set-ups, camber gain, weights and things like that," says Graves. "We do have some computer stuff but we don't dwell on that a lot. We use it when we think we have a problem and we want to check. We use it to see if we've got the basics right." He's an engineer with a decidedly un-engineer outlook! - How dominant, historically, is Hornaday? Well, he's won five of the last seven races. Remember when Skinner begged five of the circuit's first 10 races in 1995 and some were referring to the then-NASCAR SuperTruck Series by Craftsman as the "Skinner-truck series?" - There's no more beloved driver in the series--or NASCAR, perhaps then Jimmy Hensley. That having been said, even Cummins 200 by Indiana Dodge Dealers winner Hornaday and runnerup Jack Sprague felt badly about the Ridgeway, Va. veteran's fate. Hensley led 200 laps of a race which, unfortunately for him, went 202 serials. A late caution, a flat tire and Hornaday's persistence relegated Hensley's fast-qualifying Cummins Engine Company Dodge to third-place. "The last lap is what counts, and we weren't leading," lamented Hensley, who almost pulled off a Cinderella performance for several hundred Cummins and Dodge guest. - Hensley now owns the third-longest non-winning streak in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series: 42 races, including second-place finishes at Nazareth, Odessa and IRP. He trails Bob Keselowski (54) and Bill Sedgwick (47). - Sprague matched his 1996 IRP finish and took the series point lead but still wasn't completely happy, believing that with more racing room, he could have passed Hornaday and won his first NCTS short track event. "We were better than (Hornaday) was. We had a great truck and he just blocked the heck out of me," said Sprague. "We came home second and got the points lead. We'll take it...and go on to Flemington." - Sprague also became the series' third millionaire, with $1,008,268 in career winnings. - Rich Bickle, who'd led the standings since the April 20 stop in Phoenix, had to start shotgun on the field after a lap 57 red flag for Tammy Jo Kirk's backstretch accident which required down-time for wall repairs. The crew pulled tape from the nose of Bickle's Sears DieHard Chevrolet, a violation of NASCAR rules, costing Bickle his then-sixth-place. The Edgerton, Wis. competitor made it back to 10th-place at the finish but now trails Sprague by eight points. - Randy Tolsma got within an eyelash of qualifying for the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and his wife, Tiffanie, used to work in IRP's business office. Justice served, then, that the top-finishing Cintas Rookie-of-the-Year candidate bagged his best career finish, sixth-place, in the Cummins 200 by Indiana Dodge Dealers. - Joe Ruttman's 22nd-to-fourth-place drive in the LCI International Ford keeps the 52-year-old veteran in solid championship contention. "Maybe next time, if we could qualify better, we wouldn't have to wrassle so hard," observed Ruttman, who lost third-place to Hensley by a half-truck-length. - NASCAR officials impounded Hensley's Dodge, the Quaker State Chevrolet of Sprague and Mike Bliss' Team ASE Ford for transport to the General Motors wind tunnel in Detroit for Aug. 4 aerodynamic evaluation. Date will be released to the three manufacturers. - Seven races down, three to go in the 10-consecutive week segment of the schedule which began June 21 in Bristol, Tenn. Hornaday's team has been the most productive during the span, with an average finish of 4.6. He's gone from 11th in the standings, more than 200 points behind, to fourth and 104 out. Ruttman is the second-best performer at 5.0, followed by Sprague's 5.7, Bickle's 7.4 and Hensley's 8.6. On the flip side: Kenny Irwin has slumped with a 17.57, followed by Jay Sauter's 15.1 and Bliss' 15.0. Irwin, however, did break his top-10 drought with a seventh-place effort at IRP. By NASCAR Public Relations
