Jack Sprague gets the monkey off his back after taking the win. (Nate Mecha/High Sierra Photo)

The box score will show Jack Sprague won the Kroger 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race from the pole. What it won't show is how he accomplished his 27th career series victory. After leading early, Sprague handed the lead over to Ted Musgrave who looked like he would use a no-stop pit strategy to pick up his first win of the season.

Many expected someone to try it, but fail because of fuel mileage. No one expected a black flag penalty for an improper restart to send Musgrave to pit road.

That left Sprague in the lead and he was able to hold off all challenges over the final 40 laps to drive the No. 60 Con-way Freight Toyota to his second victory of the 2006 season.

Sprague celebrated the fact the fastest truck won the race, but wasn't sure he could have beaten Musgrave.

"I'm not sure we could have beaten Ted had he not had that black flag," Sprague said. "But the fastest truck did win today. We won the pole, got out and led and we could chase Ted down on a green flag run."

Sprague wasn't quite as optimistic on his chances to make it on a no-stop strategy.

Jack Sprague's race winning pit crew at work. (Shawn Mahoney/High Sierra Photo)

"If this race had as many cautions as it did last year we could have done it easily, but knowing my luck it wouldn't have worked out that way," Sprague said. "We decided to come in early and get that stop out of the way and for once it worked out for us. I just knew if we tried what Ted tried we'd get stuck and run out of gas. It was going to be a good race without that penalty. I would have knocked him out of the way to win, and he would have knocked me out of the way to keep it."

Musgrave was disappointed at the turn of events that left the No. 9 Team ASE Toyota 15th at the finish.

"I don't know what that call was, you'll have to ask the guys up in the tower," Musgrave said. "I made the same second-gear restart I made all afternoon. I know there were some heated arguments in the 30 pit in Talladega and maybe that's what this is all about. But I shouldn't be getting any heat for that."

Musgrave said the no-stop pit strategy would have worked, if not for the penalty.

"Yeah, we were fine on fuel," Musgrave said. "We had enough caution laps and we were good to go. I don't know that I could have held off Jack, but it sure would have been a great race for it. As it was, the fans got ripped off because that sure was a boring finish."

David Starr finished second in the No. 11 ToyotaForklift.net Toyota. Starr won the at Martinsville race earlier in the season, but a brush with the wall in practice could have hampered his chances this weeked.

"You are never comfortable in this series," Starr said. "We won in the spring, but we knew we needed to be better if we wanted to win this race. We were trying hard in practice and we got up into the wall and banged up our truck. The guys did a great job getting it fixed."

Starr had to race hard with Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate Erik Darnell late in the race to get up to second.

"He was able to stop his truck, get it to rotate, and get back on the gas," Starr said. "That killed my momentum. I couldn't get off the corner. On that restart he left a lane open and I shot in there and closed it up. He cut down on me and got himself loose, and I was able to take advantage of it."

Starr's day was not without controversy. On a restart with 65 laps to go, Starr and Todd Bodine made contact, cutting Bodine's left rear tire and sending him to the pits.

"We got together and it cut down my left rear," Bodine said dejectedly. "We had to pit, we had no choice. When you pit that late here it just kills you. We worked our way back up and made the best of it we could. We did everything right here and should have had a top-five but that's the way it goes."

Mark Martin finished fourth, and Johnny Benson rounded out the top five finishers. With his finish, Benson unofficially chopped Bodine's point lead to 79 with four races remaining.

Kyle Busch finished sixth ahead of Mike Skinner, Denny Hamlin, Rick Crawford, and rookie Chase Miller.

The race was slowed a record 12 times for cautions, most for single-truck incidents. The race did get off to a slow start on lap one when David Ragan, Brendan Gaughan, Bill Lester and Tam Topham came together in turn one. Ragan's day would go downhill from there as he would be involved in three other cautions. The most serious incident of the day involved Damon Lusk, who was making his first start of the season, and Chad McCumbee on the frontstretch. McCumbee made contact with the rear of Lusk's machine turning him head-on into the wall at the flagstand. Lusk was done for the day while McCumbee was served with a two-lap penalty for rough driving. On lap 167, the other multi-truck incident of the day broke out when Robert Richardson, Erin Crocker, Cameron Dodson, J.C. Stout, and Ragan all came together in turn one. All drivers were able to refire from that incident and continue on with minimal damage.

The next race for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is the Easy Care Vehicle Service Contracts 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday October 28. TruckSeries.com will have complete event coverage starting with TrackSideLive! coverage of practice on October 27, Live! Bud Pole Qualifying at 12 P.M. Eastern on Saturday, and complete pre- and post-race coverage immediate thereafter.