2007 Team ASE Media Kit
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| Musgrave, No. 9 Team ASE Toyota Finish 25th at Talladega Superspeedway | ||
| Talladega, AL (October 9,
2007) Ted Musgrave and his No. 9 Team ASE Toyota crew introduced a
brand new truck at Talladega Superspeedway that was plenty capable
of winning the Mountain Dew 250. The new Tundra exceeded driver
expectations and a solid seventh-place qualifying effort put
Musgrave in position to capture an elusive victory on the massive
2.66-mile superspeedway, the fastest track in NASCAR. Musgrave would
challenge for the lead early, rebounding from a flat tire, only to
be caught up in a six-truck wreck that would force the 2005 NASCAR
Craftsman Truck Series champion to settle for a disappointing 25th
-place finish. "We were off just a little bit in qualifying, but the truck was handling real well. It was a brand new truck, something that we never even had a racetrack before. Right off the hauler, we were really happy with our No. 9 Team ASE Toyota. It drove great in the draft; it could suck up behind other trucks and lead a draft, something we couldn't do with our other truck. We figured our seventh place qualifying effort wasn't all that bad. We were near the front with all good trucks so a win with this new Toyota Tundra was definitely doable," said Musgrave. Musgrave’s first setback occurred on the backstretch while bump drafting early in the event. The No. 9 Team ASE Toyota sustained moderate damage with a punched in front nose section. Musgrave and his No. 9 Team ASE Toyota crew decided to bolt on four fresh Goodyear Wranglers and a full load of fuel while other teams elected to change only two tires, relegating Musgrave mid-pack after the initial round of service stops on pit road. “We took on four tires and fuel. Some of the guys only took two tires and got out ahead of us off of pit road. That kind of hurt us because the race transpired in a way that you couldn’t do a lot of passing. The guys on the bottom lined up and it was hard to get by them. I don’t like to follow in line so I stayed on the outside and worked our way up to the front and challenged for the lead with our teammate and race winner Todd Bodine,” explained Musgrave. Musgrave’s next visit to pit road came sooner than planned, but an opportune caution flag would have to bring his No. 9 Team ASE Toyota truck in for an early pit stop. “We had a tire going down and we had to make an early pitstop. Thankfully, the caution came out and we were able to stay out on the lead lap but had to start further back in the pack again.” Musgrave’s shot at victory was all but over when his Team ASE Toyota got caught up in a six-truck crash when eventual third-place finisher, No. 23 Johnny Benson, had no where to go and spun Jack Sprague’s ailing No. 60 Toyota in the tri-oval. “When Jack’s (Sprague) tire blew and collected a bunch of trucks, that knocked the radiator out of our Team ASE Toyota - we were pretty much done. We had to replace the radiator and that took some time to repair. We got back out at the end and were able to make up a couple laps. We are trying to do everything to get into the Top-5 points but after Talladega it’s going to be really tough to make that up,” Musgrave continued “We were one of the only trucks that could make moves on the outside; we could actually pull a train up to the front.” Musgrave and his No. 9 Team ASE Toyota crew are hard at work testing their Martinsville truck at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida, the same truck the team took to ORP and Loudon. Musgrave is seventh in the 2007 Championship point standings, 320 points behind Rick Crawford in sixth. Next up for Musgrave and the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota is the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway on October 20, 2007. SPEED will have live NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series coverage starting at 3:00 PM Eastern Time and MRN Radio on selected affiliates nationwide. TruckSeries.com will have complete event coverage including practice, qualifying, and race updates online at www.truckseries.com. ________________________________________________________________ What is Team ASE? In the early days of racing, the driver
was often recognized as the main reason for a team’s success.
Recently, the crew chief and crew have been acknowledged as equally
important in creating a winning situation for every race team. A
parallel exists between racing and the automotive service industry.
Similar to the way a crew chief and crew must deliver a satisfactory
product to the driver in order to win the race, an employer and the
technicians in a service and repair shop must satisfy the needs of
their customer in order to create return business. But what makes
TEAM ASE most unique is the level of commitment from our certified
technicians involved in the program – both on and off the track.
Being competitive on the race track is important to TEAM ASE because
ASE is itself a standard of excellence. However, TEAM ASE’s success
in motorsports is not solely measured by pole position, top-five
finishes or by slapping hundreds of decals on racecars. There is
much more to the TEAM ASE program.
http://www.ase.com
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http://www.germainracing.com -
http://www.truckseries.com -
http://www.speedtv.com |
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