Sprague hoping season woes end in Memphis

There's an expression, "If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all." This is Jack Sprague's nightmare right now in the Craftsman Truck Series and Saturday under the lights of Memphis Motorsports Park, the O'Reilly 200 (8:30 p.m. ET, SPEED) is the perfect opportunity for the Wyler Racing veteran to get his season back on the upswing.

"I don't know about turning the season around, I just need the bad luck to quit," Sprague said. "I don't necessarily want good luck; I just don't want the bad."

By the Numbers

Jack Sprague isn't the only driver looking to turn things around in Memphis. Since winning at Kansas in April, Erik Darnell has just one top-10.

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Things were looking great for Sprague when the season opened with a dramatic, three-wide victory at Daytona. He followed that up with a third at California and was tied with Mike Skinner for the points lead through the first two races. After a disappointing finish at Atlanta, which saw Sprague finish 23rd after starting on the front row, Sprague then reeled off a 16th at Martinsville and a third in Kansas.

Then the fortunes of the No. 60 Toyota shifted to the dark side.

After moving up to second position on Lap 36 in the Quaker Steak and Lube 200 at Lowe's, Sprague cut a tire, hit the wall hard and posted his first DNF of the season.

Things picked up momentarily at Mansfield when Sprague finished second for the third consecutive year at the track, but after that it's been all downhill since.

A 28th at Dover after Sprague started seventh but was caught up in a Lap 1 crash. He finished 26th at Texas after losing a lap thanks to a cut tire and at Michigan he came home 29th when another tire going down put him in the wall on Lap 82 after starting seventh.

"This is just unbelievable," Sprague said after his third consecutive finish of 26th or worse. "They continue to give me great trucks every week; we just have had some horrible luck and we need for it to end here real soon."

It looked like the luck was making a turn for the better last week at Milwaukee. Sprague was in top five for most of the race and was running fourth with six laps to go when the No. 4 of Mike Bliss clipped the rear of Sprague's truck while battling for position, forcing Sprague into a spin. Sprague did a fantastic job keeping his truck off the wall, but was forced to come in for tires, leading to an 11th-place finish. (Continued)