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November 18, 2003 Dennis Setzer Comes Close to Championship, Sets Record at Homestead Miami, FL – Dennis Setzer and the Morgan-Dollar Motorsports team came just a little short of pulling off one of the biggest championship upsets in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series history. Setzer finished seventh in the season finale Ford 200, just one position behind eventual champion, Travis Kvapil. The finish wasn’t good enough to capture the championship, but it did enable Dennis to grab another career record. His seventh-place finish moved him into the top spot for consecutive top-ten finishes in a single season, in the Craftsman Truck Series. Setzer, who tied Ron Hornaday, Jr’s record at Phoenix two weeks ago at 19, eclipsed it with an unbelievable 20th top-ten finish to end the season. His consistency was only outdone by the championship team. Travis and his #16 Chevy team had completed every lap run this season except one. Dennis and Morgan-Dollar had an engine failure in Darlington and finished the race in 28th position, 126 laps down. The team also had an engine problem in Charlotte and finished 23rd, but only 3 laps down. From there on the team completed every lap and finished in the top-ten for the remaining 20 races. It all boiled down to the final race as Setzer and three other drivers came into the final event mathematically alive. Dennis found himself the furthest out in fourth position and 39 points out from leader Brendan Gaughan. Ted Musgrave and Travis Kvapil, who were also in contention for the championship were 27 and 34 points behind Gaughan respectively. The race itself was full of drama from start to finish. Gaughan would have to start from the rear due to an engine change during practice. Kvapil lost control of his truck on the first lap and almost crashed, but saved it. Gaughan came from the rear of the field to pass all the other contenders only to get caught up in a crash with just 40 laps to go. The crash took him out of contention and left only Setzer, Musgrave, and Kvapil left to claim the 2003 Truck crown. Setzer, who had started the race in 11th position, was running sixth when the caution came out for Gaughan’s crash. Dennis would need to finish several positions in front of Musgrave, and at least two in front of Kvapil to win. The laps clicked off and just inside ten laps to go, a caution flag fell with all three contenders running nose to tail. Setzer was sandwiched between Kvapil and Musgrave. The final restart would come with just two laps left to settle the race and championship. Coming to the green flag, Dennis had checked up because the leaders had continued to stack up on restarts all day. When he did, Musgrave dove to the inside and made an illegal pass on Setzer before crossing the start/finish line. His move to the left side of Dennis is illegal considering NASCAR rules. Trucks can only pass to the right on the restart. NASCAR showed Musgrave the black flag on the final lap because he never relinquished the position. Dennis made a move to pass Kvapil coming to the line but lost the battle for seventh-place by only a few feet as they finished side-by-side. When the race was over, it was not immediately known who had won the championship. Ten minutes after the finish, NASCAR decided to penalize Musgrave and put him back to 13th instead of sixth where he finished. That gave Kvapil the championship by a mere nine points over Dennis Setzer and the #46 Acxiom/Computer Associates race team. “We did all we could here today. Our truck was a little tight early on and we went the wrong way on an early adjustment. When Brendan got caught up in the wreck, we knew we had a shot, but all three trucks were just about the same today and we just couldn’t get any space between us,” stated Setzer. The point finish was the third closest in series history between first and second, but was the closest involving four teams. Dennis and the Acxiom/Computer Associates team had been in fourth position in the points for the last 11 races leading up to the final event at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Their jump from fourth to second in the last race was exciting and deflating at the same time. “I guess we will run it over and over in our head all year of where we could have and would have had an extra nine points,” stated Setzer. “We were pretty far out of the lead a couple of months ago, but we just kept digging. I am very proud of the guys and how we worked as a team to get to this point. No one needs to hang their heads.” The second-place finish was quite a bit of an improvement from last year’s sixth-place finish and a ninth-place finish in 2001. Now the team looks to make some major moves in the off-season to get ready for the 2004 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season that will begin in February at Daytona. |
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