Sprague: A champion of mentors

By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
November 3, 2001
4:50 PM EST (2150 GMT)

COMMENTARY

Dave Rodman

The news could’ve hit Jack Sprague like a ton of bricks.

The two-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion was coming off his worst season of six, in a career run in which he’s set a fabulous mark of competing in every single pickup truck race run in the “modern era.”

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“Jack,” the conversation between Sprague and team owner Rick Hendrick might’ve gone. “We’re gonna run two trucks out of your shop next year. Ricky’s gonna be your teammate.”

Sprague, 37, is no shrinking violet when it comes to offering an opinion. This time he wasn’t asked.

Jack Sprague poses with the NCTS trophy.

“Man,” Sprague recalled recently. “I’ve never had a teammate before and it’s the boss’s kid, besides? I didn’t know what to think. But we ran better than we ever have before.”

He needn’t have worried, or wondered. Sprague rebounded -- more than once -- to dominate the 2001 Craftsman Truck Series, and in the process pulled young Hendrick, 21, on his coattails to an outstanding rookie season as well.

So by simply starting the season finale Auto Club 200 Sprague becomes a landmark three-time Craftsman Truck Series champ. It’s not a bad mark to establish in a career that’s still building, from a hand-to-mouth beginning as a Late Model racer.

Perhaps to the biggest credit, Sprague did it his way. Fiercely loyal, unquestionably committed -- blunt to a fault; he WAS the man to beat all season despite impressive stretches by Dodge boys Scott Riggs, Joe Ruttman and Ted Musgrave.

He didn’t need to make extra points with his owner. But that came as part of the bargain that is Sprague’s stock-in-trade.

Sprague has won 4 times in 2001.

“I tell you,” owner Hendrick said, looking back to the initial decision to break his son in with Sprague and master crew chief Dennis Connor. “If you looked at Jack and his reputation: Aggressive, hard-nosed -- that might not be a good situation for a rookie.”

You could say Ricky Hendrick was everything Jack Sprague wasn’t at the same age. Putting race driving ability aside, Sprague had neither the opportunity nor the financial backing -- two critical elements to motorsports success -- at his fingertips.

But what he had experienced and his delivery of that knowledge were critical to young Hendrick’s development this season. Not only did Sprague earn his championship, Hendrick achieved virtually all his goals with a Bud Pole, a race victory, a top-10 point finish and down-to-the-wire race for Rookie of the Year.

“I will tell you this without question: He could not have been with a better guy,” Rick Hendrick said of his son. “Ricky learned pretty quickly that if Jack told him something he meant it. What he said sometimes is not real popular, but I respect him for that.

Ricky Hendrick

“We didn’t need Jack to make Ricky feel good. He was not supposed to be a cheerleader for him.”

“If you don’t want the answer, don’t ask the question,” Hendrick said, putting Sprague’s mystique in a nutshell. “Jack is not politically correct, he is not sugar-coated. If you ask him something he will tell you the truth and not flower it over.”

Sprague fits the Old West gunfighter image to the T. If he’s scowling in the garage; it’s because he and Connor are embroiled in trying to get their No. 24 Chevy Silverado quicker yet. With an ever-present butt cupped in his hand, all he needed was chaps and spurs.

In Little Hendrick he had his sidekick who, after what the owner called an inadvertent wreck in the season opener, always had his back.

“I’ve been impressed this season,” Hendrick said of his first year traveling to every truck race. “I’ve got to be with Jack a lot more than I ever had. Jack drove the wheels off the thing -- he’s a real hard-nosed racer.

“The thing that really impressed me was they could have won, I don’t know, three or four more races if they didn’t have mechanical problems, and clinched this thing even earlier. But even with the problems they kept their heads, they didn’t fight.”

Jack Sprague

In other words, Sprague and Connor were the perfect mentors to young Hendrick and rookie crew chief Lance McGrew. So now, don’t be a bit surprised if sponsorship goals dictate either a split season in 2002 or a move to the Busch Series for what once seemed an unlikely partnership.

But for Sprague, whatever direction his career takes won’t be any less marked by commitment.

“If Rick wants to go race go-karts I’ll be there,” Sprague said earlier this year when questions of his future came up. “He is, without question, the best owner you could ever imagine yourself being involved with.”

NOTE: Dave Rodman is a staff writer for NASCAR.com. The opinions listed here are those solely of the writer. To provide feedback to Dave, email him at dave.rodman@turner.com.