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02-17-2003
No Where But Up To Go For David Starr and Spears Motorsports Team
TruckSeries.com Report
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When the season begins with an unfortunate early-race incident leading to a 36th place finish, things can only get better and that is exactly what the guys at Spears Motorports expect.
"It gives us a big hole to dig out of," said crew chief, Dave McCarty," but Tony Stewart and Mike Bliss both had bad Daytona finishes last year and came back to win championships. All we can do is hope the best and go on from here."
The week at Daytona had gotten increasingly better for the team as the Florida Dodge Dealers 250 quickly approached. They were turning in solid practice times and would be starting the season opener from a comfortable sixth row position. Following Thursday's Happy Hour, driver David Starr seemed confident and excited about the upcoming race.
"The truck feels great, it's handling really well and the guys on the team have worked hard to get us here," said Starr. "I can't wait for tomorrow's race. It will be an exciting race and I think if we don't get caught up in anything, you'll see the No. 75 Chevrolet at the front of the field."
As the green flag dropped and the 36-truck field took off, it was clear that the Spears Manufacturing Chevrolet would indeed be a contender for a top position. By lap three, Starr had made his way to the front of the field and was about to make a move on the inside for the third position when things got hairy.
"I had a good run underneath everybody," said Starr. "I was following Bobby Hamilton; Mike Wallace was on the outside of me and just came down and hit me in the right front fender. That just pushed the nose in and made the rear end come around. It doesn't take much for that sort of thing to happen at 190 mph and then after that, I was just along for the ride."
The ride ended on the frontstretch with a badly damaged racetruck an unharmed but very disappointed driver.
"It's a tough race and everybody's antsy but you hate it when something like this happens," said Starr. "I just feel really bad for my guys, they work hard all year long for this race. We were looking to have a good race and then three laps into it, we're sitting here in the garage with a torn up race truck. It's just hard to swallow when you're competitive and you want to do good for your team and you want to win. It's a part of the business that's hard to accept and it sure does hurt."
The rest of the team shared Starr's sentiments and were simply disappointed they didn't get a chance to show what their truck could do.
"We don't really know how good of a truck we had," said McCarty. "We didn't really get a chance to show them what we had. It's just disappointing after all the hard work these guys did. We had a hard test and we worked hard on our stuff to try to come back here. I think we made a lot of improvements. It's just disappointing for me and the whole team."
The team, however, also shares Starr's determination to remain positive and push forward with another successful season.
"These things happen," said Starr. "It's disappointing but we'll just keep on working hard to win races."
The team is now ranked 36th in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Point Standings and has exactly one month of hard work ahead of them to prepare for the upcoming race at Darlington Raceway on March 14th. A win from "The Lady In Black" would certainly give them a boost on their way up the point standings and possibly even mend a Valentine's Day broken heart.
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