RACE STATS:
RACE DATE: Sunday, September 29, 2002
TRACK:       Kansas Speedway
DIVISION:       NASCAR Winston Cup Series
STARTED:       23rd
FINISHED:       35th

RACE OVERVIEW:
    Jack Sprague's first Winston Cup race of the season ended in disappointment as the No. 60 Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet finished 35th in Sunday's Protection One 400 event at Kansas Speedway.  The effort was the first of four scheduled Winston Cup races Sprague and his crew will attempt to run before making the jump full-time in 2003.
    Sprague's shiny new ride started from the 23rd position and shot off good.  After on a few laps, Sprague managed to run speed good enough to be the eighth quickest car on the track.  Just as Sprague thought he was on the right track to a good day, flashbacks of Saturday's Busch race and wrecking on Lap 36, only his Winston Cup mess started a few laps earlier.
   After a restart on Lap 32, Sprague was involved in a four-car incident. Kyle Petty and Morgan Shepard's cars touched, causing a chain reaction.  Sprague was then hit in the tail-end by  Ken Schrader.  Thankfully, only cosmetic damage was received to the Haas CNC Racing car.  Sprague pulled his racecar behind pit wall and the team began working their magic as they cut off and replaced the nose of the No. 60 car with a brand new one.  The act was a professional demonstration of teamwork. 
    Sprague returned to the racetrack, but wound up ending the day early on Lap 129.
   
JACK SPRAGUE POST RACE QUOTES:

SPRAGUE'S THOUGHTS ON FINISH:
"It's an embarrassing finish of course.  35th isn't what we were looking for, especially because it was our first race and we really wanted to come out looking like we knew what we were doing.  We know what we're doing, but it's hard to stomach things like today. The car was really fast right from the start.  I didn't get very far though. I lost a bunch of spots on a restart, which put me back in the field, so I was a glutton for punishment at that point.  I have to hand it to my guys though.  Once again, they did an awesome job repairing the car and staying calm.  I'm proud to have such a hard working group of professionals like them to fix my mess."

ON QUALIFYING FOR SUNDAY'S WINSTON CUP EVENT:
"Despite our terrible finish, we had a great qualifying run.  Starting 23rd wasn't to shabby considering it was this team's first Winston Cup attempt.  We needed to make the race on time, so anything would have been okay in our book.  After how well the car handled in practice I thought I could run at least a 30.65 second lap.  The Busch car was loose earlier when I qualified, so we pulled some tape off the Cup car, but then it made the car tight.  We would have liked a finish to back our qualifying run up."