Jack Sprague will never forget his first win at Daytona International Speedway.
On the first day of NASCAR Camping World Truck Series testing in preparation for the season-opening ninth annual Chevy Silverado 250 on Friday night, Feb. 15, Jack Sprague recalled last year's wild three-wide checkered flag winning finish that delivered him his first victory at "The World Center of Racing."
"Last year was phenomenal. To win at Daytona is something that very few people get to do, that I really never thought I would do," Sprague said during Friday's lunch break.
In a three-wide finish reminiscent of the 2003 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway, Jack Sprague's No. 60 Toyota got a push from Johnny Benson's No. 23 Toyota to nip Travis Kvapil at the start/finish line on the final lap to capture the Chevy Silverado 250. The margin of victory for Sprague was .031 seconds.
"I was in the right place at the right time at the end," Sprague said. "We had a fast truck. "We sat on the pole. It wasn't like it was dumb luck. It was a good truck. Everything went right for us. It was certainly a victory that I never thought I would never achieve because it is so difficult to win here. You need a lot of help from a lot of people to do it and we had that. It would be great to win here again but it is the hardest race to win I think in anybody's career."
The 2008 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season will see Sprague return to Chevrolet. He'll drive for Kevin Harvick Inc. in the No. 2 Chevrolet and serve as a teammate to his friend and rival Ron Hornaday Jr., the 2007 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion. Hornaday and Sprague have produced many memorable moments in the history of the series with each of them winning three championships.
"We've been friends for a long time," Sprague said. "We've done this for a long time. I think we'll be able to make each other stronger as far as information and things of that nature.
"A lot of the rivalry, the intense moments, not all of them but most of them, were hype, were media. That works. That sells. That made it interesting. We certainly raced each other extremely hard and still do. But at that point, we were both trying to be Cup drivers in 1995. We were (determined) to do whatever we had to do. It's not that we don't drive hard anymore, but we drive each other with a lot more respect. We're not trying to get anywhere; we're where we want to be."
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