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Ted Musgrave is a former winner at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, turning into the winner’s circle after the inaugural NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the 1.5-mile oval in 2003. Musgrave returns to the track for the sixth running of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 with the HT Motorsports team and the No. 59 Team ASE/Harris Trucking Toyota.

Ted on the setup under the truck: “It’s something that has changed over the years. It used to be every racetrack needed a different setup to deal with the bumps and even the asphalt itself. Every racetrack has its own level of grip. That’s all a shock issue now. With the coil binding setups now, you pretty much come to the track with a baseline setup that you can take to all of these 1.5-mile tracks. All you have to do is make some fine tuning adjustments.”

Ted on the character of Lowe’s Motor Speedway: “It hasn’t changed all that much. It’s still its own animal. I liked it before they changed it – the “Hump Bumps” in turn three were really fun and you had to work to make the truck work over those bumps. I think the biggest change we’re going to see now is the line we need to run. With the tapered spacer and the gear rule, momentum is going to be more important than ever. You used to want to run along the line down through turns three and four. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a lot of drivers right up next to the wall through turns three and four to get momentum for that long frontstretch.”

Ted on how the All-Star Race atmosphere seeps into the Truck Series garage: “I think it does affect the Truck drivers. Everyone is running in front of the hometown crowd. I guess you could say it brings out the best of us and the worst of us. Sometimes you make some judgments you wouldn’t normally make. I think sometimes that has to do with the crowd and then all of the people from the team that are there watching. Another part of it is we have all of these young guys wanting to make a move into the Nationwide Series or even the Sprint Cup Series and sometimes they might try a little too hard to get noticed, and that’s when problems happen.”

Ted on being a mentor to his son, Justin, who is starting his dirt late model racing career: “He is just starting out with the dirt late models. He’s running a crate engine series to keep the costs down a little. He’s been running within the Carolinas, just in the two or three states nearby. We don’t want him to get in too far over his head just yet. But he has been doing extremely well so far. He’s had a couple of heat race wins and he’s been in the top three in the feature a few times too. As far as the advice I can offer him, well, there isn’t any because I’ve never driven one of those. And they do the exact opposite of everything we would do. We want the left front pinned down and the right rear hiked up. They do the exact opposite. There’s a big difference in weight transfer too. Those dirt late models are really neat but very different from what we’re used to on asphalt. So what I do is just stay out of the way and do what he asks me to do.”

Ted’s NCTS Stats at Lowe’s Motor Speedway: In five previous NCTS starts at Lowe’s, Ted has one win (2003) and four top-five finishes. His only finish outside of the top-five was in 2004 when he came home 31st. He was third in 2005, fourth in 2006, and fifth in 2007. He’s led 28 laps at Lowe’s, all in his victory in 2003. His average start is 15.8, and his average finish is 8.8. He has completed 671 of the 676 possible laps in the five previous races at Lowe’s.

The veteran driver also has 19 career Cup Series starts at the Concord, North Carolina track and four starts in the Nationwide Series. In all, Musgrave has completed 8,158 laps in NASCAR competition around Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

About Team ASE:

The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) has been involved in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series since 1995, with a mission to salute the technicians and other automotive professionals who demonstrate high performance every day.

ASE, a national non-profit organization, was founded in 1972 to help improve the quality of automotive service and repair through the voluntary testing and certification of automotive service professionals. More than 400,000 ASE-Certified professionals work in dealerships, independent shops, service stations, auto parts stores, fleets, schools and colleges across the nation.