LONG POND, Pa. -- Former Truck Series champion Ted Musgrave enjoyed his one-day reunion Friday with his former pit boss Gene Nead, but Nead's official debut as Robby Gordon Motorsports' Sprint Cup crew chief ended in a DNQ for the Gillette Fusion 500 at Pocono Raceway.

For four years beginning in 2002 Musgrave and his crew chief Nead finished no worse than third in the Truck Series championship -- finally winning the 2005 title for Jim Smith's Ultra Motorsports. But they didn't enjoy the same success Friday in Musgrave's debut in the current Cup car.

“

We did everything we could do but it was frustrating, all the stuff we went through all day.

”

-- TED MUSGRAVE

With team owner/driver Gordon racing his off-road truck in the SCORE Baja 500 Friday and Saturday and Nead stepping into the crew chief's role after seven races in that position for the No. 5 Randy Moss Motorsports Toyota driven by Mike Skinner, Musgrave said the hole was just too deep to dig out of.

"We were really in trouble all during practice," Musgrave said after clocking the 42nd-fastest time out of 45 cars. "We made some big changes right there at the end, to qualify and that's kind of always a thrill when you go out there -- and they even said 'we don't know what it's gonna do, so hang on.'"

But first-time Pocono Cup starter Chad McCumbee picked up 1.3 seconds from practice in Larry Gunselman's No. 64 Toyota, while Musgrave picked up only six tenths of a second. That left him as the slowest go-or-go-home car and on his way home, with driver Terry Cook and the No. 09 Phoenix Racing Chevrolet also failing to qualify.

"Coming off Turn [3] I got all crossed-up and had to get off the throttle, and that kills all your momentum onto the front straightaway," Musgrave said. "We did everything we could do but it was frustrating, all the stuff we went through all day. They got it a lot better, but we were pretty far off to start with -- and so was I [laughing].

"Gene and I had good communication in the Truck Series, but that was the Truck Series, and these COT cars are way different. I had never tested, never driven a COT car until I was here [Friday], so if we'd made the show it would have been a big accomplishment -- though [not making it] is a big disappointment, too."

Nead, who made some spot appearances working with Gordon's team earlier this season, replaces Miles Stanley, who was in the crew chief's spot for a handful of races and will step back into his regular engineer's position with RGM, according to a team spokesperson.

RGM, which entered the Pocono event 36th in the owners' standings, 15 points out of the last locked-in spot, probably won't get passed for position but will lose ground to the teams directly in front of it that all made Sunday's race.

Musgrave said they just ran out of time.

"Since we had gotten it better and better, that qualifying lap was more of what I was used to in a Cup car," said Musgrave, who has 305 career Cup starts, with his last coming in 2003. "The cars don't seem to stop as good as they used to, with the big downforce, but other than that, it was still a race car."