Sometimes in racing, it's better to be lucky than good. And in the case of Jack Sprague and the Wyler Racing team, they could use a little luck on their side. They've proven to be good, but luck hasn't gone their way since winning the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway in February. Tire failures and other misfortunes have kept Sprague from the winner's circle, which is something unfamiliar to the three-time Series' Champion who has 28 career victories to his name. Sprague was hoping to change that and have Lady Luck on his side when the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series hit Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a site where Sprague has seen a lot of success, but a blown tire forced his early retirement from the Smith's Las Vegas 350 on Saturday.

Sprague, who is Las Vegas Motor Speedway's only two-time winner, had made nine previous starts at the 1.5-mile oval, accumulating three poles and three runner-up finishes since making his Craftsman Truck Series debut there in 1996. Up until Saturday, Sprague had only qualified outside of the top-9 once but that streak ended after his No. 60 Con-way Freight Toyota struggled to find speed in qualifying, resulting in a 28th place starting position after running a lap of 31.931 seconds at a speed of 169.115 miles per hour.

When the 146-lap race got underway, Sprague's Toyota was a handful to drive as the front end was dragging the race track. Sprague managed to maneuver into 25th position by lap 30, but just one lap later disaster struck as he was making his way out of turn two. As Sprague came out of the corner, the right front tire blew, sending Sprague into the turn two wall and causing significant damage to the Con-way Freight machine. As NASCAR displayed the caution, Sprague dove down pit road and to the attention of the crew.

"We just blew a right front," said Sprague. "It's just unfortunate -- I don't know if we ran over something or what happened. It's unfortunate because with the way the wind was blowing I hit the wall really hard, but it wasn't going to be that bad."

The Con-way Freight crew assessed the damage and determined that it was too severe for at-track repairs. "We just can't catch a break," said Sprague. "We were really struggling right there, we were hitting the nose really hard. We were waiting for a caution to work on it and low and behold we were the caution. The guys work hard and putting out the effort -- we are just having a rough time."

Sprague was credited with a 32nd place finish in the Smith's Las Vegas 350, but he held onto 10th place in the 2007 Championship title chase. "The No. 60 Con-way Freight Toyota is a team that can be up front every week, and we should be running in the top-10 every week," said Sprague. "We've just had some bad luck this year with things that are out of our control like blowing tires or getting wrecked. Our goal is to stay in the top-10 in points and to do that, we're going to have to have some luck and some solid finishes."