Sprague / No. 60 HAAS CNC Racing Chevy Pack It Up Early at Phoenix
AVONDALE, AZ (November 9, 2002) - Jack Sprague and the Haas CNC Racing team
failed to qualify for Sunday's Checkered Auto Parts 500 Winston Cup event.
The disappointing effort was Sprague's third attempt this season in the No.
60 Chevrolet.
"I did
everything I could to get a better second lap, but the Haas car felt like it
was dragging in the corners," said Sprague, who will start 14th in
Saturday's Busch Series race. "The car was really loose in practice,
especially in Turn 4. We knew after the sheet had us towards the bottom
after practice that we were going to have our work cut out for us."
According to Sprague, his Haas ride was extremely loose during the two hour
practice session that morning and ironically, posted the 42nd spot on the
practice sheet - the same position Sprague qualified his Haas CNC Racing
ride. Sprague rolled off pit road 48th out of the 51 cars attempting to make
the field. The late two-lap run was one Sprague and the Haas team hoped
would work to their advantage, but in the end, the 27.830 second lap time
(129.357 mph) wasn't good enough to stay through Sunday.
"We're
doing the same thing a lot of other teams are doing right now - getting
notes and experience for next season," said Sprague. "We know it's a tough
business and being a new team and new equipment makes your job that much
harder. We didn't make the race, but we've got something to work with going
into next year, so it's not a total disappointment. We'll just go on to
Homestead and hope for the best there."
Next up
for Sprague and the Haas CNC Racing team will be the Ford 400 at Homestead
Miami Speedway. The field will take the green flag on Sunday, November 17 at
12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Race 36 of the 36 scheduled events will
be telecast live on NBC. MRN Radio will also broadcast the race live on
more than 300 affiliated stations worldwide.
ABOUT HAAS AUTOMATION
Haas Automation, Inc. is located in Oxnard, California and is the largest,
most modern machine tool manufacturing operations in the United States,
manufacturing four major product lines with nearly 900 employees. Haas
Automation, Inc. builds a full line of CNC vertical machining centers,
horizontal machining centers, CNC lathes, rotary tables and 5C indexers.
President Gene Haas founded the company in 1983 and in 1987 began developing
its first vertical machining center (VMC) to perform machining operations,
such as milling, drilling, tapping and boring and cost competitive with
offshore manufacturers. Today, Haas Corporate Headquarters are located in
Oxnard, California. It is the largest, most modern machine tool
manufacturing operation in the United States, manufacturing four major
product lines with nearly 900 employees.
