Rain has postponed all on-track activity for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Daytona International Speedway. Saturday testing was canceled completely; Sunday testing is on weather delay.  NASCAR announced they would continue testing for the NCTS on Monday, January 17, 2005. Former NCTS champions Jack Sprague and Ron Hornaday came to the infield media center for media Q & A:

RON HORNADAY, NO. 6 GM GOODWRENCH SILVERADO:

On disappointment of not yet being able to get testing laps at Daytona: "While it is boring for, it has actually been a good opportunity for me to get to know the guys on my crew just a little better.  We have been sitting around in the transporter kidding around and talking about this and that.  Anytime you get away from the shop and spend time with your guys on the road, you learn more about one another and get a chance to know the characteristics of each of the guys and they get to know me. It isn't helping us not getting on the racetrack by any means, but it still is a plus for us to have a chance to just hang out together. I haven't run here in a truck for a long time and we need some laps in our GM Goodwrench Silverado but we will just have to make up for lost time when the sun comes out."

On level of competition now in the NCTS:  "I have continually watched the NCTS because it is truly my love, because this is the series that made my name and the reason I got the call from Dale Earnhardt to drive for him.   When we started racing, there were 43 trucks on the short tracks and now there are just 36 so it makes a much bigger percentage of guys who can make the race and then capable of winning the race.  It looks like if you don't work hard to win a bunch of races or finish in the top three, you are going to be out of the points hunt.  Watching the Kevin Harvick truck last year and knowing what it was capable of, I know I have the equipment to be in the hunt.  That is what you are going to have to do to be in the hunt. Dodge has been trying to win this championship for a lot of years and finally did last year with Bobby Hamilton but you have to do what he did which is run hard and solid every week and don't do something stupid if you don't have the perfect truck to win. I have only run a couple of times in the series the past few years, a couple of years ago in Homestead for the team that Jack now races for when Mike Bliss won the championship and that truck drove different from what I used to drive.  Then last year I drove the No.47 Morgan Dollar Motorsports Silverado at Phoenix and that truck drove completely different from the ones I had driven before.  We qualified well but you have to keep your equipment there throughout the entire race and you can't afford to get off even a little.  You can't manhandle and hustle theses things like we used to.  They have to handle, you have to depend on your team and you have to be able to tell them what the truck is doing.  The format that NASCAR has created for us where at all of the races there isn't going to be any happy hour, you are really going to have to depend on your team to bring you a solid piece to unload and hopefully you don't wreck it and run good right off the truck."

More on changes in the NCTS through the years:  "The overview is 'Hats off to NASCAR'.  When they told me they were going to Daytona with the NCTS, I told them they were nuts.   When we first started this deal Jack and I had 60 counts of lift in the front and zero in the rear and was spookier to drive these things.  SPRAGUE INTERJECTS - "But it was more fun though" Yes, it was but we went to different kinds of tracks and road courses. But then we came down here to Daytona.  I didn't have a chance to run the first race here but Rick Hendrick gave me a chance to take Ricky's (Hendrick) truck right off the showroom floor for the second one and it was amazing the difference at what NASCAR had done with this series. My hat is off the Craftsman for sticking around for all these years to see what this series was going to do, to realize the dream.  Five years ago, they were asking me where I thought the NCTS was going to go and I told them then that the sky was the limit.  Now they are asking me after there is ten years down where it is going to go and the answer is the same.  I guess they could strap rocket ships to these things because they just make them handle better and better.  We are on superspeedways now and it is awesome racing. You don't see the NEXTEL Cup team owners and drivers ignoring the truck races anymore, everyone is up watching them or has them on in their haulers because they are all looking for their next talent and the trucks definably put on the best show.

On major highlights of NCTS career: "There were a lot of highlights in my first years in the series.  When I got the phone call from Dale (Earnhardt) and then he and Teresa gave me the opportunity to race their truck and every day after that.  We learned by our mistakes and we won races by doing it right.  I am sitting up hear because of Dale and Teresa and now Kevin and Delana (Harvick) are giving me an opportunity to drive a great truck."

On Kevin Harvick, Inc program and shop: "It is unbelievable.  I went up there about a year after he (Kevin Harvick) built his first small shop when he was just running a few NCTS races himself. It was a very nice shop. When he told me he built a new shop on the same property, I was trying to figure out where he did it at.  When I got up there and saw it, it is just amazing how fast and how well they have done this new shop. The people and the way it is setup with the engineering and they way they do the bodies is laid out, it is done as well as any of the big top-notch shop.  It is a first class operation.   I have worked for Dale Earnhardt, I have worked for Richard Childress Racing and Kevin has applied a little bit of all of it and new shop just really makes sense. As fast as Kevin has grown his organization in the last couple of years, he will be a premier team in our business. It is pretty remarkable to go from running his own little truck deal part time to a second season full-time NCTS team with a huge sponsor and enough sponsorship to run a full-time NASCAR Busch Series team with Tony Raines, myself at Mexico City and Tony Stewart.  And he has plans for the future.

On opportunities available to him after leaving RCR NBS program: "This is the best opportunity I was presented after learning I was leaving the RCR NBS program because it gave me a chance to come back to the NCTS that I love in a very competitive truck.  Jack and I talked about this numerous times, there is so much pressure over there in both Busch and Cup and there is nothing like the Trucks.  It was overwhelming the phone calls I received as soon as Richard (Childress) released that I was not returning as his driver and I thank him very much for doing that for me to allow enough time for other offers to come through.  This was the best deal for me and the best fit.  There were offers from other manufacturers but I have been with Chevrolet all of my racing career, just like Jack, I have never driven anything but a Chevrolet.  When they told me I could drive this GM Goodwrench Silverado, I stepped right up to it, there was no question I was going to take it.  I feel bad about Matt (Crafton) but I think he understands that I have been with Chevrolet for a longtime, that is was nothing he did.  He did a great job for Kevin all of last year.  His situation and mine with Richard were about the same.  We ran good and good years and I don't know if you call it politics or what but it happened for me at the right time. Kevin just wanted to go up another notch.  He knows my driving style and hired a couple more fabricators, he must figure that Jack and I are going run into each other a few times. We are just ready to go racing. I thank Kevin, Delana and GM Goodwrench for the opportunity.

On racing a NCTS truck here at Daytona:  "If you bought a ticket on the best roller coaster in the world, you aren't going to get a better ride than you are at Daytona in a truck.  I found that out at Michigan.  I think I was running behind Jack and Biffle, about third or fourth, and I caught a good draft.  For some reason before that, I never thought a truck could draft like that, I was about 30 truck lengths behind Jack and by the time we came out of turn two, I was leading the race. So coming here to Daytona, the track isn't the widest and now it has the softer barrier walls which narrowed the track up even more so you will honestly see some four wide racing here. You have to find a hole, the trucks draft so well, you have to have a good handling truck here.  The last time I ran a truck here, you were doing a lot of lifting and braking but now if you handle well, you have to be able to flat foot it here.  We brought two style trucks here to the test, we brought the one they raced here last year and we brought a downforce truck, but we don't know which one we are going to race here yet.  I feel like every manufacturer has stepped up to the plate. They have given us better equipment to drive and NASCAR is doing a better job in getting this series better and better.  All year it is going to be flat out races.  It is going to be the guy who has the most luck go his way this year, who has the best pit stops, and keep their nose clean who is going to win this race, other races and go on to win the championship."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. 16 CHEVY TRUCKS SILVERADO:

On having old rival Ron Hornaday back in the NCTS: "It is going to make it more competitive last year. Last year was just unbelievable the level of competition up even from what it was in '03.  I was talking to someone today about the changes.  I ran the last couple races of '03 and it was pretty much like it used to be.  I came back last year and it was tough.  It was a whole lot easier to lose points than it was to gain them back; it was just about impossible to gain them back.  Before it was Ron (Hornaday), myself, Joe Ruttman, (Mike) Skinner was there for a couple of years, but basically the three of us then (Greg) Biffle came along, but basically if you didn't have a catastrophic day, you were going to finish in the top-five.  Now, you can be off just whiskers and getting a top-ten is very difficult.  So, to win a championship, it is just that much harder than it used to be.  This year he (Hornaday) is going to run for the championship, Johnny Benson, Todd Bodine, Jimmy Spencer are all going to be tough because they are all going to be in good equipment.  There are more that I haven't mentioned that are capable of winning races and only a couple guys left the series. It is going to be a tough deal and we are all going to have to be on our game but it will definitely be a lot of fun. I think 2004 was a building year for our Chevy Trucks Silverado team and we have what we need to win some races and be in contention at the end of the season for the championship.

On celebrating Ten Years Tough of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series:  "When I first heard about this deal, the NCTS, I honestly thought it was a joke.  I thought this is going to be funny, people racing trucks that it would be flash in the pan and be gone. I think a lot of people thought that. I guess I didn't really understand much of what was going on in creating the series.  I was thinking that these were going to be fiberglass bodies, what were they going to be using for chassis and other questions.  But then when I got to see a truck and saw that is was just a racecar with a bigger cage and a truck steel body but built along the same lines of a Cup car or a Busch car, I thought ok, this is kind of cool but it still is kind of funky looking.  I watched the Winter Heat Series on television and it was some great racing.  I thought it was pretty cool.  This was back in '94 and I was racing my own late model and I was doing all right, I wasn't making any money, I was surviving.  I got a call to drive the No. 31 truck (owned by Bruce Griffin) and I said to myself that I needed a job and what the heck, I might as well try it.  So we went to Phoenix for the first race.  I had never seen the place before in my life, scared to death I wouldn't make the race having spent all the money to drive all the way from the East Coast to almost the West Coast to get there, cause we certainly couldn't afford plane tickets, made the race and finished seventh.  And thought wow, this is really cool and have been loving it ever since.

"I think some of the highlights for me were the first truck race I won in '96 at Phoenix and continued to win three-in-a-row there.  It is probably my favorite track for that reason I just love to race there.  Obviously, winning the championship in '97 for the first time, that was something that I never thought I could honestly accomplish-to win a championship in one of the top-three series of NASCAR.  That was pretty big for me to win it with Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet. In 1998 when it was a huge disappointment to lose it only three points but then in 1999 winning my second by just a little more than that was sweet.  It is funny that Hornaday was involved in both those deals cause Biffle moved over and let Hornaday go to win the championship.  But it was beautiful in 1999 when he "blocked" Biffle and Bliss that helped me win it.  That was pretty cool, '99 was pretty cool when we stopped on the front stretch of Las Vegas and stood on the beds of our trucks side by side and raised our hands together.  The fans loved it, Chevrolet loved it and it was a great time.  We really didn't do it for promotion; we did it because we respect each other as competitors. We did it cause we raced hard and we love to race each other.

HORNADAY INTERJECTS: "That was my last race in the Truck Series because I was going to Busch." 

SPRAGUE RESPONDS:  "Yea, and I was glad."

"The problem we have now is it seems like everyone is expecting sparks between Ron and I like there used to be in the old days but there is just too much at stake and we have to work together.  We both drive Chevrolet factory-backed Silverados and we have to help each other out for the sake of our program and our factory Chevrolet effort. David (Starr), Dennis (Setzer), Matt (Crafton) and I did last year. It worked really well.  We have some room for improvement to get our Silverados up front all the time and their technical team is working really hard to get us there.  The four of us worked really well together and I think we will really have the same thing this season adding Ron to our mix.  All the years I worked with a teammate sometimes we wanted to race each other really hard when it wasn't necessary and our program was like that a little bit. But about half way through the year, we all figured it out and if another one of the guys caught you quick, just let them go until you can race with them.  Ron isn't dumb, he knows the gig.  We will race each other hard but neither one of us is going to go over the edge and looking a something and saying 'Well, maybe I can make it' probably won't happen like they used to.  It is all good and we have a lot of respect for each other.  In the old days, the media had more fun with our rivalry and made a bigger deal out of it than we did and it helped the series but we would sit back at our buses or at the hotel at night sipping on a cold beverage laughing about what happened. (Sprague chuckles) Some of it was just too funny. 

HORNADAY INTERJECTS: "The first year we didn't because we couldn't figure each other out. We are both a little hard headed but we finally got it and made it work"

On racing a NCTS truck at Daytona:  "It isn't bad but you have to be comfortable.  I think the most comfortable I have been in here is in a Busch car.  In the package that was on them in '02, I like a lot and my car was really good here. But I have never finished a truck race here not beat all up before it was done.  I finished well in the Busch race and finished 14th in the Daytona 500 and I have just struggled to get through the truck races here.  The trucks push so can much air that you basically not lose the draft, you can get a draft half a straight a way back and catch the guy.  When you get in a pile of them, the air is bouncing around so hard it is throwing the truck all over the place. It is kinda fun if you trust the guys around because if the guy in front of you doesn't have a clue and he is bouncing all over the place, he isn't going to finish the thing and neither are you if you are around him. 

HORNADAY INTERJECTS: "You are always so honest, so politically correct and honest."  "I'm old now Hornaday, it took me a long time to learn how to be politically correct and still be honest. It is fun and it is cool here at Daytona but man it is hairy. Here the last place guy is perfectly capable of running in the middle of the fast trucks because you can't get away from one another. "A perfect example is my son came down here and ran and they actually pulled a spark plug wire off at the start of the race and he ran on seven cylinders.  He ran about 35 laps and never lost the lead draft and was in the middle of the pack before they blew the motor. The aerodynamics of these trucks are the reason and it is everything here."

JACK: "What happens is guys that might not have quite enough skill to run up front can do and that is what makes it hairy"