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Setzer Claims Toyota Tundra Milwaukee 200 At Milwaukee Mile
by Jim Tretow
MILWAUKEE (June 24, 2005) – It may have taken Dennis Setzer ten years to
finally put it all together at The Milwaukee Mile, but he finally did it in a
huge way, dominating the Toyota Tundra Milwaukee 200 NASCAR Craftsmen Truck
Series race Friday night June 24th to score his second series win of the
season.
Setzer became the 10th series winner in 11 events held at The Milwaukee Mile.
“It was a long time coming but…finally!” exclaimed Setzer whose previous
best Milwaukee finish was a second place in the inaugural series event at
America’s Legendary Oval in 1995. “We almost won one here ten years ago,
which opened some doors for us as far as getting good rides, so it’s special
to win here.”
And win he did, leading a whopping 152 of the event’s 200 laps in record
time, as he left a mere four trucks on the lead lap at the conclusion.
It took a scant 1 hour, 49.11 minutes from start to finish for the North
Carolina veteran. Once Setzer took the lead on lap 44, it was obvious to
the crowd of 26, 571 that he had the truck to beat as he quickly pulled away
from Jack Sprague, Ted Musgrave, Ron Hornaday and the rest of the field.
“We just started out great and stayed the same all night,” Setzer
continued. “I couldn’t ask for a race to turn out any better.”
Sprague was the only driver to really keep Setzer honest, starting from the
pole position and leading the opening 43 laps. Sprague then trailed Setzer
throughout the remainder of the race before finally having to settle for
second place 3.993 seconds behind the leader.
“Dennis (Setzer) had us covered tonight and he was just better than us,”
Sprague explained. “On fresh tires I could catch him a little bit, but he
had us beat. He had us and everyone else covered tonight. We did what we could
do.”
“We pretty much annihilated everyone else,” Sprague followed up,
chuckling. “If Dennis wasn’t here I would have looked pretty good, but he
was here. It was pretty evident we had the best trucks tonight.”
Defending Toyota Tundra Milwaukee 200 race winner Musgrave is the only driver
to have won more than one NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event. The
former local driver from Franklin, Wis. driver ran a solid, yet distant third.
“We varied our set-up from a year ago and it took awhile to get the truck
close to where it was last year,” the Wisconsin native stated afterwards.
“Sometimes you think you can do better than the last time and then you
don’t but after all the recent disappointments we’ve had, it’s good to
finally do something right. It’s just that someone else really did
something right.”
“We might have caught Sprague towards the end there with a little luck, but
we didn’t have anything for Dennis,” Musgrave continued. “In the end, I
was just happy to get the race over with and take third.”
Hornaday’s fourth place finish in owner Kevin Harvick’s truck extended his
amazing string of top-10 finishes at The Milwaukee Mile to eleven consecutive
races. The defending Busch Series race winner at The ‘Mile has now
completed all six NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races and all five Busch
Series races he’s run at the historic speedway no worse than tenth.
His run tonight, however, was more of a contest of perseverance.
“I couldn’t even see the guys up front,” claimed Hornaday. “I had a
few good laps and got going but the traffic out there slowed us down a half
second a lap. We did everything we could.”
“We were running Ted (Musgrave) down for a while but then I overshot the
corner and screwed up the tires,” Hornaday went on. “We could have used a
couple more cautions for adjustments but I’m sure so could have a lot of
other guys. All in all to come out of here with a top four finish isn’t
bad.”
Brendan Gaughan, the 2003 Milwaukee truck winner, finished in the fifth
position while defending series champion Bobby Hamilton, Steve Park, and Rick
Crawford took the checkered flag in the sixth through eighth spots,
respectively. Sun Prairie, WI rookie driver Todd Kluever turned in a
strong performance as the top finishing first-year driver in ninth, and ’02
Milwaukee champ Terry Cook rounded out the top ten.
Surprisingly, the race, which was run under threatening skies, was only slowed
by the caution flag a single time for a total of four laps, producing a
fast-paced average speed of 109.907 mph.
Setzer’s victory vaulted him into the series points lead by 35 markers over
Hamilton while Musgrave sits in third place, 44 points out of the lead.
Hornaday’s performance moved him into the fourth spot in the point standings
while Ricky Craven fell to fifth after finishing 21st.
For tickets to all the exciting events happening at The Milwaukee Mile,
including tomorrow night’s SBC 250 NASCAR Busch Series race, visit www.milwaukeemile.com.
UNOFFICIAL FINISH
Toyota Tundra Milwaukee 200
The Milwaukee Mile
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Friday, June 24, 2005
Finish, Start, Number, Name
1 3 46 Dennis Setzer
2 1 16 Jack Sprague
3 5 1 Ted Musgrave
4 8 6 Ron Hornaday,
Jr.
5 4 77 Brendan Gaughan
6 20 04 Bobby Hamilton
7 29 62 Steve Park
8 12 14 Rick Crawford
9 6 50 Todd Kluever
10 19 10 Terry Cook
11 7 75 David Starr
12 26 2 Jimmy Spencer
13 16 38 Brandon Whitt
14 18 59 Robet Pressley
15 14 22 Bill Lester
16 9 5 Mike Skinner
17 22 60 Chad Chaffin
18 11 88 Matt Crafton
19 24 15 Martin Truex, Jr.
20 15 65 Regan Smith
21 23 99 Ricky Craven
22 17 07 Chris Wimmer
23 10 17 David Reutimann
24 35 8 Deborah Renshaw
25 32 4 Chris Fontaine
26 34 63 Justin Allgaier
27 13 29 Brad Kesolowski
28 27 08 Rich Bickle
29 33 31 Nicolas Tucker
30 36 91 JC Stout
31 21 12 Robert Huffman
32 25 13 Tracy Hines
33 31 18 Chase Montgomery
34 2 30 Todd Bodine
35 28 23 Johnny Benson
36 30 61 Alex Yontz
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