Musgrave's Dodge the truck to beat at Gateway

MADISON, Ill. -- Dodge has held the upper hand so far this NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season but Chevrolet is the most recent winner going into Sunday's $538,893 Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers Ram Tough 200 at Gateway International Raceway.

Veterans Robert Pressley -- the NCTS point leader -- and Ted Musgrave swapped victories and second places in their Dodges to start the season and fellow long-timer Dennis Setzer won the most recent round at Martinsville Speedway in his Silverado.

But Setzer and the other 40 entries will have a hard time matching Musgrave's mark from last season, when he led a one-two Dodge sweep by Ultra Motorsports.

They'll get a chance at 4 p.m. ET Sunday, when the 160-lap race is televised live on ESPN and broadcast on the affiliate network of MRN Radio.

Musgrave's No. 1 Mopar Ram won last year's race on the 1.25-mile oval from the Bud Pole position by the third-largest margin of victory in Craftsman Truck Series history -- 10.428 seconds.

He led more laps in last year's race -- 140 out of 160 -- than any other driver has recorded in their entire career at the track. It's not surprising that Musgrave, who won seven times last season, likes his chances the second time around.

"It's a driver's type of track," Musgrave said. "Don't get me wrong -- you have to have a good truck or you won't go anywhere -- but the guy who knows his way around St. Louis can take a mediocre truck and make it a pretty good one.

"It's that kind of track where you have to set up the truck so it's more or less at a happy medium. Then the driver has to get the best out of it. If you can get your truck set up really good to get up off the corner, you can make some nice passes down the front straightaway."

Drivers will use practice sessions scheduled from 11:30 a.m. - 12:40 p.m. ET and 1:45 - 2:45 to set their trucks up for Bud Pole Qualifying. The session that will set the top-32 positions, plus four provisionals is at 3:45 p.m., followed by a final one-hour Happy Hour session.

Setzer will use the same No. 46 Acxiom/Computer Associates Chevrolet with which he won at Martinsville and thinks it will perform well at Gateway.

"I really like this track a lot," said Setzer, who was second in the 1999 truck race. "Turns 1 and 2 are a lot like Martinsville and you use a lot of heavy braking getting into 1. Turns 3 and 4 are very different -- wide and sweeping like a speedway.

"The track also has multiple passing points and if you have a good truck, you can make your move to the front without being held up in traffic."

Gateway is a track at which shifting is a viable option for a number of drivers. No. 8 Dodge Motorsports Ram driver Bill Lester, is a former road racer who appreciates that variable.

"I'm excited about going to St. Louis because it's a place that I'm familiar with," Lester said of the site of his first start with Bobby Hamilton Racing, a year ago. "It's a track that requires a lot of technical skill. You have to downshift into Turn 1, and upshift off the exit of Turn 2.

"Each corner is different and I think that fits my style of driving. It's also a place that I have gone through practice and qualifying so I have a good idea of what to expect."

That's something Musgrave's teammate, first-year truck driver Jason Leffler, is banking on as well. Leffler, who is one of three Dodge drivers -- along with Pressley and Musgrave -- to have won Bud Poles this season has a lot of experience at Gateway in a couple different divisions.

"Gateway is really unique," said Leffler. "We race on a lot of high-banked superspeedways where all you have to do is hold the throttle wide open and turn the wheel every once in a while. Gateway is definitely a driver's race track.

"I know I'll be moving around a lot on the track all weekend searching for a faster lane. That's my kind of racing."