David Starr and his International MaxxForce Diesel team entered this weekend's race at Nashville Superspeedway with two goals in mind: posting a top-five five finish and earning a top-10 spot in the point standings.

In an attempt to accomplish this feat, crew chief Dennis Connor pulled CB-18 out of the stable, a truck which Starr had raced at the season's first concrete venue, Dover International Speedway. Having battled the flu early in the week, Starr was looking for a fast International MaxxForce Diesel Ford F-150 to help provide some much-needed medicine and a mid-season pick-me-up.

The International MaxxForce Diesel F-150 was strong in both of Friday's practice sessions, with Starr posting the 11th and ninth fastest times of the two sessions. A loose-handling F-150 in qualifying put the International MaxxForce Diesel team in 27th position for the start of the race, but they would not remain there for long once the green flag waved.

Starr radioed to the crew early in the 150-lap event that he was battling a tight-handling F-150, but he was able to overcome that condition and march his way through the field, moving into the top 15 by the time the event's first caution flew at lap 43. With a slight chassis adjustment in the pits during the first caution period, Starr's International MaxxForce Diesel crew returned him to the track in the 16th position.

Starr continued to pick off the competitors one by one, and made his way into the top 10 by lap 60, still battling a tight-handling International MaxxForce Diesel F-150. With Starr solidly in the top 10 midway through the race, and with just one more pit stop needed to finish the race, pit strategy entered into the equation.

Connor realized after the first pit stop that left-side tire wear was a non-factor on their International MaxxForce Diesel F-150, and as the race seemed to be going toward a green-flag stop, the decision was made to attempt a two-tire stop during the final pit stop. With caution waving at lap 111, Connor and Starr talked strategy and the decision to make a two-tire stop was finalized. Entering the pits in the ninth position, Starr returned his International MaxxForce Diesel F-150 to the track in second, left to hold off a charging field during the final 40 laps.

Starr, looking to capture his second top-five finish of 2007, held off most of the early-race contenders in the closing laps to finish a well-deserved fourth place. Advancing 23 positions from the start of the race to the finish, the International MaxxForce Diesel team was able to close ground to the top 10 in the point standings and is tied in points with Erik Darnell, but due to the tiebreaker rule is currently 11th in the standings.

David Starr: "Our International MaxxForce Diesel Ford F-150 was pretty awesome today. It was pretty good when the race started. We were a little loose when we qualified earlier today, but I knew our Ford F-150 was pretty good. The biggest thing tonight was a heck of a call by Dennis Conner to take two tires. That was a heck of a call. With the trackbar adjustment we made midway through the race, we were sliding the nose right before the center of the corner, and the pit stop before, when we took the left-side tires off, they didn't have any wear on them. Dennis made a call there at the end to make a trackbar adjustment and take right-side tires only, and we thought it might fix the problem that I was having, and it did. It fixed it. Obviously, four tires are better than two, but I thought I was going to catch (Mike) Skinner there for a little while.

"We knew that if we could get track position that we might have a shot at it, and the truck came alive. I wasn't able to hold off the guys that had four Goodyears on and we had two. Travis (Kvapil) did a heck of a job. I think he only took two right-side tires, and (Ron) Hornaday and Skinner, they could hold it better on the bottom and were able to get by. It was a great day for Circle Bar Racing and my teammate Rick Crawford. He had a great day. I think there were five or six Fords in the top 10. It was a good day for Ford and Circle Bar Racing. It just feels good to be back up here in the top five where we belong. It's been a while to get to this point, and we went through our growing pains, but we're getting it turned around."

Dennis Connor: "Because of qualifying so bad, I worked out every scenario that I could think about in the time between qualifying and the start of the race. Starting as far back as we did, you had to do something different than everybody else was doing to get catch up from the bad qualifying deal. So, that was the scenario that I was playing when it looked like we might have to stop under the green. I was planning on doing two tires under the green and put the can of fuel in. When the caution did come out, we were sitting there running ninth, and had we put four tires on, we were probably going to go out 12th because somebody else was not going to put four on. I suggested it to David, and asked him if he thought the truck was good enough, and he said he thought it was. That's all I needed to hear. In this day and time, track position is so important that if you can get there and your truck is pretty good, you can usually maintain it, even with two tires."