Sunday, June 30, 2002
Biffle wins Busch pole
Caution helps Cook top truck field
The Associated Press
WEST ALLIS, Wis. — Greg Biffle took pole position, and Jim Sauter and his three sons will start in the top 10 of today's GNC Live Well 250.
Biffle, who won the race last year, will head the field after a fast lap of 121.770mph Saturday on the Milwaukee Mile.
“It's a fun place to race, and I like flatter, technical race tracks,” said Biffle, third in Busch Series points. “I seem to adapt better to those conditions.”
Jason Keller will start second in the 43-car field after he clocked in at 121.544.
Tim Sauter, third at 120.964, will race his father, Jim, and two brothers, Jay and Johnny.
Jay was fifth, Johnny ninth and Jim 10th.
“It turned out real good for us,” Tim Sauter said. “I'm not too surprised. Those guys came and tested here a little while ago. ... They were pumped up.”
Four members of the same family haven't raced together since 1949, when Bob, Fonty and Tim Flock were joined by sister Ethel on the Daytona road and beach course.
“Now that the qualifying is over, it's a sigh of relief. I wanted to be in the top 10,” said Jim Sauter, who raised his family in the small Wisconsin town of Necedah.
He competed in 76 Winston Cup races from 1980-96, with four top-10 finishes. Since his retirement, he has tested cars for the IROC series.
The family racing reunion happened after Richard Childress, who sponsors sons Jay and Johnny, added a car for Jim.
“He said he doesn't miss it, but yesterday there was an awful lot of excitement on his face,” Tim, who races for Alec Pinsonneault, said of his dad.
Biffle, who won the Craftsman Truck Series race at the Milwaukee Mile in 1999 and finished third in 2000, has finished third or better in his last four Busch series races.
He and Keller said track position is key to Sunday's race.
“You hear that weekly about track position, and track position is everything,” Keller said. “At a race track that's so hard to pass like here at Milwaukee, it's going to be even more apparent tomorrow.”
Series leader Jack Sprague will start from the 18th position.
TRUCK SERIES: Terry Cook took advantage of a race-extending caution at The Milwaukee Mile, passing Jason Leffler with less than two laps remaining to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series GNC Live Well 200.
Cook, who had led 127 of the race's first 154 laps before a slow pit stop dropped his Ford to fifth place, battled back to within a half-second of Leffler's Dodge. But Cook was running out of time when Brian Rose hit the Turn 4 wall.
The race's third caution extended the 200-lap, 200-mile distance for three laps — the last two under green — and Cook took full advantage of the reprieve.
The Ohio native was able to dive under Leffler's truck as the pair began the 202nd trip around the flat, one-mile speedway. He took the lead off Turn 2 and extended the advantage to .696-seconds — about two truck lengths — at the checkered flag.
Cook, who averaged 104.490 mph, won for the second time in 2002 and third in a 127-race NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career dating to mid-1996. He won $48,960 plus a $10,000 sponsor's bonus for winning from the pole position.
Leffler, a U.S. Auto Club open-wheel champion who still seeks his first NASCAR victory, finished second for the third time in series competition.
“I was going to be heartbroken,” said Cook, believing he was destined to finish second for the second time in as many races despite having the fastest truck. “I just yelled 'yeeha' when that caution came out. I was able to put an outside-inside move on Jason ... and I got underneath him for the win.”
Leffler, who'd had to forfeit a No. 7 qualifying spot to start 30th after his crew changed an engine on race morning, blamed himself for the inability to protect his late lead.
“If I had to do it over again, I'd get a better restart,” said Leffler. “I'm surprised I stayed ahead of him as long as I did.”
Cook, eighth different series driver to win at The Milwaukee Mile, that began in 1995, first year of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Coy Gibbs, started and finished third in his Chevrolet Silverado. Rookie points leader Brendan Gaughan blocked defending race winner Ted Musgrave to claim fourth, also in a Chevy.
That blocked allowed David Starr to pull inside Musgrave off the final turn and the pair banged fenders all the way to the checkered flag. Musgrave prevailed by about an inch to hold off Starr and take the lead by four. Starr had entered the season's ninth race with a one point lead.
Robert Pressley, Mike Bliss, Jon Wood and Travis Kvapil completed the top 10.
There were six lead changes among five drivers — Cook, Leffler, Gaughan, Gibbs and Bliss.
The race's three, brief caution periods consumed just nine of 203 laps, the fewest in eight series events on the track.
RICHMOND, Va. — Sam Hornish Jr. blew by Gil de Ferran on the inside of the first turn with less than two laps to go Saturday and handed the Penske team a bitter loss in the SunTrust Indy Challenge.
Hornish, never a factor until the end, passed Felipe Giaffone for second on the 246th lap, then reeled in de Ferran. Hornish got underneath de Ferran in the front straightaway, pulling ahead entering the first turn and racing away to win by 1.8323 seconds.
“I didn't know I could pass him until I did,” Hornish said.
It was the defending series champion's sixth career victory and third this season and came at the expense of one of the Penske teams, which have dominated the IRL in their first season since coming over from CART.
De Ferran, the polesitter seeking his second consecutive victory, seemed to have the race in hand when Giaffone twice tried to challenge him for the lead in the last 50 laps and both times was turned away.
But once Hornish got by Giaffone, the race was on, and then over.
De Ferran, who led 168 of the 250 laps, held on to finish second, followed by Giaffone, Tomas Scheckter, Al Unser Jr. and Airton Dare.
“As soon as we started running under green, the car just kept getting looser and looser,” de Ferran said.
Once Hornish made a bid for the lead, “there was nothing I could do other than throwing him in the grass.
“It's always sad to lose the lead so late in the race,” de Ferran said. “But at that point, I didn't feel there was much else I could have done.”
Much like last year, when the three-quarter-mile oval became the shortest track in series history, the race looked a lot like the NASCAR events more familiar to Virginians. The open-wheel cars bumped and banged the wall at a rate far more common among Chevys and Fords.
Points leader Helio Castroneves was the first to crash, losing his grip coming out of Turn 2 on the eighth lap and hitting the inside wall. The crash put Castroneves behind the wall for 150 laps, but he returned.
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