Dennis Setzer makes some clouds of his own with a victory burn out at the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Ohio 250 at Mansfield Motorsports Park. (VPS Motorimages Photo)

Saturday's victory brought a sigh of relief from Dennis Setzer and the Spears Motorsports team, both of whom broke lengthy non-winning streaks.

Setzer, who matched Jack Sprague's series mark of wins in nine different seasons, hadn't been in Victory Lane since mid-2005 at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. The North Carolina native's winless streak had reached 41 entering the Ohio 250. He joined the Spears team in the off-season.

For owners Wayne and Connie Spears, the wait was even longer. Former driver David Starr produced the team's most recent win in November 2004 at Phoenix International Raceway. The Spears team, the last active organization to compete in the series' 1995 inaugural event, snapped a string of 57 consecutive defeats.

Crew chief Tom Ackerman, however, got his first series win in just his fifth start since taking over the pit box at Atlanta in March.

Setzer now counts victories at four of the five short tracks on the current schedule. He can match Sprague's sweep with a victory at Bristol Motor Speedway in August.

The Mansfield winner counts eight short track victories among his 17 total wins.

Dodge, suffering through its worst year in the series, finally got a pair of top 10s on Saturday. Bobby Hamilton Racing teammates Ken Schrader and Raybestos Rookie candidate Kevin Hamlin finished third and 10th, respectively.

Hamlin, who joined the team at Lowe's Motor Speedway, tested extensively at a short track in Alabama - he wouldn't say which one - and shared his notes with Schrader, who fashioned his first top-five effort since 2004 at Dover International Speedway.

"It's hard to go to war with just two trucks," said Schrader in reference to BHR's status as Dodge's only entry in the series.

The pair picked a great time to break a slump. The late Hamilton's 10th and final victory came at Mansfield Motorsports Park in May 2005. He was remembered in pre-race ceremonies during which Hamilton's widow, Lori, received a large, commemorative plaque bearing the likenesses of the 2004 series champion and his No. 18 Fastenal Dodge.

Each of three previous Ohio 250 races had seen a Raybestos rookie candidate finish among the top five. The streak ended Saturday when, two laps shy of the finish and running a solid second, Aaron Fike saw the fuel cell in his Red Horse Racing Toyota go dry.

Hamlin and 11th-place Joey Clanton became the top finishing freshman drivers as a disappointed Fike wound up 24th.

Fike wasn't the only driver to say "what might have been." Matt Crafton, hoping to break a 153-race winless streak one race shy of Lance Norick's series record, led 68 laps until a right front tire went down and his Menards Chevrolet wound up hard in Turn 4's outside wall.

Crafton lost 78 laps while his crew replaced suspension pieces. He finished next-to-last in the 35th position.

The race's 103 laps of caution exceeded by nine the previous most serials run under the yellow flag. The existing record came in Mansfield's inaugural event of 2004.

Has the post-championship jinx settled in with Todd Bodine? It appeared that way Saturday as the 2006 titleholder was well on his way to a top-five finish when he was tagged from behind in Turn 1 by Ron Hornaday Jr. The incident severely rearranged the nose of Bodine's Lumber Liquidators Toyota and required the replacement of the truck's radiator.

Bodine returned, eight laps behind, but slipped from the runnerup spot in the point standings. He was replaced as runnerup by Hornaday, who came from the rear of the field on three different occasions to earn a finish of sixth. The two-time champion was a demon on fresher tires than his rivals - that's one reason he'd closed so fast on Bodine - and picked up two positions in the final, five-lap sprint to the checkered flag.

The "stealth" drive of the race belonged to Brendan Gaughan - an admitted non-fan of tight short tracks - who guided his South Point Hotel Chevrolet from 35th to ninth. The truck was largely unmarked as Gaughan, who collected his 11th top 10 on a short track, was willing to play the patience game to good advantage.

That was in marked contrast to March's race at Martinsville Speedway where a series of dust-ups resulted in a post-race conference with series director Wayne Auton.

"Maybe he should put me on his speed dial," Gaughan joked before the race.

Four drivers - Tim Cowen, Ryan Mathews, Bradley Riethmeyer and Jack Smith - made their NASCAR Craftsman Truck debuts in the Ohio 250. Mathews, who replaced Tyler Walker in Bill Davis Racing's No. 36 Toyota, garnered the best finish - 18th - among the quartet.

Two crew chiefs and a number from each team switched shops following the May 18 race at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Barry Dodson, formerly the boss of the Key Motorsports No. 40 Chevrolet, moved to Pennington Racing to oversee Raybestos Rookie Jason White.

Pennington's former crew chief, Gary Showalter, rolled his toolbox over to Curtis Key's shop where he helped guide Clay Rogers to a finish of 16th.

Showalter's 34-year-old son Chris, truck chief for Morgan-Dollar Motorsports' No. 47 Ginn Resorts Chevrolet, will make his 300th appearance as a crew member at Dover International Speedway this Friday. Showalter is the only person to have worked all 299 series races and shared the 2003 championship with Travis Kvapil.

"I never thought I'd make a career of it," said Ohio native Showalter, who went to the series-opening event as a 21-year-old mechanic with Liberty Racing and driver Butch Miller. "I figured in five years I'd be in the NEXTEL Cup Series. But I found out I love it here. People treat you good and I've had a lot of fun."