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June 18, 2004
7:01 PM EDT (2301 GMT)
MILLINGTON, Tenn. -- Jack Sprague and Ted Musgrave will start Saturday's O'Reilly 200 race from the front row as veterans continued to show the way in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition at Memphis Motorsports Park.
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| Jack Sprague celebrates his second Bud Pole Award of the season. Credit: Nate Mecha/HSP |
Three-time series champion Sprague, winner of the 2000 event at Memphis, drove his Chevy Trucks Chevrolet Silverado around the .75-mile oval at an average speed of 118.917 mph. Friday's pole was the 22nd of Sprague's career -- he leads the series in the category -- and second at the track.
The Spring Lake, Mich. driver, who hasn't competed on the series at Memphis since 2001 when he also was the No. 1 qualifier, was just .02-second quicker than Musgrave's Mopar Dodge. Musgrave, the pole winner and second place finisher last week at Texas Motor Speedway, posted a lap speed of 118.801.
Sprague is the first driver to win more than one pole during the 2004 season. He was the fast qualifier in April at Martinsville Speedway.
Musgrave, the defending O'Reilly 200 winner, has won in each of his first three full seasons on the series but has yet to score a victory in 2004.
Veteran Bobby Hamilton, the race's 2000 pole starter, qualified his Square D Dodge in the third position. Last year's seventh-place finisher recorded a lap speed of 118.739.
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Carl Edwards and Travis Kvapil qualified fourth and fifth, followed by Shane Hmiel, Jon Wood, rookie Robert Huffman, Chad Chaffin and series points leader Dennis Setzer.
All four manufacturers -- Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Toyota -- qualified a truck among the top five. First-year competitor Toyota is the only one of the truck makers without a 2004 win.
Edwards, who drives the Superchips Ford owned by Jack Roush, finished fifth a year ago -- the first rookie to claim a top-five finish at Memphis. Kvapil, the defending series champion who switched from Chevrolet to Toyota in 2004, won the 2002 O'Reilly 200. Setzer, the Texas winner, was victorious here in 2001.
Setzer holds a 50-point lead over Daytona winner Edwards, entering the season's eighth of 25 scheduled events.
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