NetZero Team Looks Forward to Talladega

HARRISBURG, NC (April 2, 2003)-- Jack Sprague and Haas CNC Racing team are looking forward to taking on Talladega Superspeedway this weekend as the No. 0 NetZero Pontiac races in the Aaron's 499. The team's best finish of the year was 14th in the Daytona 500 and Sprague feels confident that he will be able to repeat his early success in the season's second restrictor plate race.

"Daytona was our best race so far this season, so I'm actually looking forward to going to Talladega and seeing if we can duplicate that success," said Sprague. "I'm confident in the car we've got because it's the same car we had at Daytona and we've worked on it a bit to make it even better."

The 2.66-mile tri-oval at Talladega is the longest and widest track on the NASCAR circuit, making it one of the fastest and challenging. "Talladega will be a wild ride, no doubt about it," said Sprague. "We're coming off a decent finish in Texas (22nd) and hope to be able to follow that up with something even better. We just need to make sure we stay out of trouble, which is never easy when restrictor plates are involved."

This week's race will mark Sprague's fourth career start at Talladega. During his third race at Talladega last year, Sprague was involved in a 29-car pileup in the Busch Series race, but still managed to finish 13th.

Sprague is in 37th place in the Winston Cup Series standings and fourth in the rookie of the year competition through seven races. The team made a few changes last week in Texas that resulted in taking 22nd place, the second best finish of the year.

"We feel like we are making changes and adding people that will help the team perform better," said Sprague. "We need people around with Winston Cup experience and we're out getting them. Nobody thought this would be easy, but on the other hand, I don't think we expected to come out of the box and struggle quite as much as we have. Last week in Texas was a good start for us. If we can go out and get a couple more good, solid finishes then we might be on to something good."

The Aaron's 499 NASCAR Winston Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway will take the green flag Sunday, April 5 at 1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The event will be the eight of 34 NASCAR Winston Cup Series races this season and will be telecast live on FOX. MRN Radio will also broadcast the race live.