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February 7, 2003 Dennis Setzer Plans to Pick Up
in 2004, Right Where He Left Off in 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Morgan-Dollar Motorsports
Sam Brown (910) 724-1148 Cell
(704) 871-2260 Off.
(704) 871-1928 Fax
Statesville, NC – Two finishing positions. That’s all it would have taken
for driver, Dennis Setzer and his #46 Morgan-Dollar Motorsports race team to
capture their first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship last season.
Morgan-Dollar Motorsports and Setzer were the hottest team in the Craftsman
Truck Series over the final half of last season. Setzer’s average finish was
4.2 over the final 10 races including one win, eight top-five finishes, and
two top-tens. Matter of fact, Setzer broke a record that may never be
duplicated. His 20-straight finishes of tenth or better in a single season
will be hard to beat given that the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season
normally operates on a 25-race schedule.
Since the streak ran through the end of the 2003 season, Dennis and the team
can beat the overall top-ten streak across multiple seasons with four more
top-ten finishes to start 2004. Dennis and his Team Silverado crew know that
Daytona is not an easy place to capture a good finish. Their history has
proven otherwise until last year.
Everyone in racing knows, Daytona can ultimately determine the type of
season that a team will have in 2004. Morgan-Dollar knows this from
experience since the team experienced engine failures in 2001 and 2002 at
the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Those problems led to playing catch up to the
other teams early in the season. However, with the seventh-place finish last
season, Dennis and the #46 crew felt that they had turned the corner. They
knew that they escaped Daytona with a top-ten and felt that would be an
indication of things to come, but as in all of racing – nothing is
predictable.
“You know I have never gotten off to a good start in any season I have raced
in the Craftsman Truck Series,” stated Setzer. “We have been able to finish
pretty strong, but were always playing catch-up because of bad races at the
beginning of the season. This team is focused on a good start this year, and
right now our focus is squarely on Daytona.”
In 1999, Dennis’ first full season of competition in the NCTS, he ran one
lap before another engine failure would leave him in last place at the
season opener in Miami. That same year, Dennis went on to win three races,
and scored eleven top-fives, and nineteen top-ten finishes. He also went
into the season’s final race just twenty-five points out of the
championship.
In 2000, Setzer got a lap down early in the race at Daytona and was never
able to make it up. Then came back to back engine failures at Daytona in
2001 and 2002, both coming while Dennis was running in the top-five.
2003 was different in many ways. The #46 crew was able to identify and fix
an intake problem mid-race at the season opener in Daytona. Once the problem
was resolved, Setzer came storming back to the front of the pack. He ran as
high as third on the final lap, but got shuffled back to seventh in the mad
dash to the finish line.
With a respectable finish at Daytona, the team then looked to put some
distance behind themselves at Darlington. However, the engine woes would
rear their ugly head again – this time in the season’s second race. A broken
cam shaft ended the day for Setzer. He went on to finish twenty-eighth and
fell to sixteenth in the overall point standings.
After two straight wins at Mesa Marin Speedway and Martinsville Speedway in
the season’s third and fourth races, things seemed to be back on track.
Dennis and the Morgan-Dollar crew were back to fifth in points and had won
half the races in the 2003 season to that point.
The fifth race of the season would take place in Dennis’ backyard –
Charlotte Motor Speedway. The up and down season took another plunge as a
loose oil line relegated the team to twenty-third place finish. “We really
had a crazy start to the season in 2003,” commented Setzer. “We felt really
good about getting past Daytona with seventh, but then had a major setback
in Darlington. The team responded well and we were able to win two in a row.
So really we didn’t know what kind of team we had and were really worried
that we had taken ourselves out of contention for the title.”
Charlotte would prove to be a defining moment in the season and the #46 team
would never look back. Together, Setzer and the crew never finished higher
than ninth in the final twenty races. Even more astonishing was the fact
that fifteen of the twenty races resulted in top-five finishes. During this
stretch Dennis and the team moved from sixth to fourth with one race to go.
A wild final race at Homestead left Setzer battling for the championship
down to the last lap. They wound up second in the title chase, but it was
highest finish for both driver and team.
In 2004, Dennis Setzer and his veteran #46 Morgan-Dollar Motorsports
Chevrolet Silverado race team know they must keep the momentum going from
2003 and get off to a good start. The team has made numerous changes in
their program that should pay immediate dividends this season. Their
headquarters have changed from Hennessey, Oklahoma to Statesville, North
Carolina. This move has not only enabled them to work out of a
state-of-the-art facility, but has allowed them to hire key personnel not
available before their transition.
Sponsorship from Chevrolet Silverado has provided for stability and the
ability to make long term commitments to the facility, equipment and
personnel. As for those lingering engine miscues, Morgan-Dollar Motorsports
has enlisted Richard Childress Racing to facilitate motors for the #46
Chevrolet Silverado all season. All the more reason to look for Dennis
Setzer and the Morgan-Dollar Motorsports team to pick up right where they
left off in 2003.
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