Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 2, 1994 TAG: 9404020108
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENSBORO, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
His career would be over, certainly winding down, if he played major-league baseball. If football had been his game, he probably would be long retired.
But at 38, after a 17-year apprenticeship on the short tracks of the Midwest, Ted Musgrave is just getting started.
As the driver of Jack Roush's No. 16 Ford Thunderbird, sponsored by The Family Channel of Virginia Beach, Musgrave won his first pole last month at Richmond, Va. And he put together four solid finishes, including a 10th at Darlington, S.C., after his crash in the Daytona 500.
But the fourth-year driver, the 14th-oldest stock car racer in the NASCAR Winston Cup series, still hasn't won. Or finished second. Or third. Or fourth. He has three career fifth-place finishes in 96 starts. But there are plenty like him in the Winston Cup series. More than half the regular competitors have never won a race. Musgrave is one of 20 winless regulars in the series.
Given his performances this year, however, and considering the quality of his equipment, Musgrave appears to have the best chance, along with Jeff Gordon, to get his first win in 1994.
"It's not frustrating that we haven't won," the Franklin, Wis., native said. "Winning the pole at Richmond this year was one big hurdle. I'd never won a pole. Winning a race is next on the list.
"But I'm definitely happy with what's going on. Every year I've been in NASCAR has constantly been a step up. If you can't make any more progress and things are not going right year after year, that's when you start worrying."
Roush is not worrying.
"He's doing just great," said Roush. "He has adopted a team that is already established. A lot of times when a driver moves, he pulls people from places he's been. Ted came in, looked at our people, made a judgment and said he thought everybody there looked just fine.
"By him adopting them, and them waiting as long as they did for somebody who could produce for them, team chemistry has developed much faster."
After finishing behind Bobby Hamilton for rookie of the year in 1991, Musgrave began turning heads in 1992 when he finished eighth in the Daytona 500 and had six other top-10 finishes. He had six more top-10 finishes in 1993.
Musgrave comes from a family of racers and has worked on race cars since childhood. He started driving in 1973, when he was 18.
"I got the training car," he said. "It was a big, heavy car - a 1964 Ford Galaxy 500 - and you simply could not get hurt in it. It could knock down concrete walls, guardrails, everything. But my father's attitude was his son was not going to get hurt driving. It was a good thing, because I sure knocked down enough walls."
He raced in Wisconsin and the Midwest through the '70s and '80s, flourishing in small regional series such as ARTGO and CWRA while working as a truck driver.
"Wednesday morning I'd go to work with a car in my hauler," Musgrave said. "Right after work, I'd jump out of my truck, jump into my hauler and go to La Crosse, Wis., and race. I'd go back to work and sleep in my truck. They'd knock on the door to wake me up. I'd work Thursday all day, jump back in the hauler and go to Wausau and race. Then I'd go back to work and sleep in the truck.
"This happened until Saturday. I would leave Wednesday morning and not even see my house until early Sunday morning. I didn't know where I was half the time."
Musgrave, who now lives with his wife and three children in Troutman, N.C., didn't visit Daytona for the first time until the mid-1980s and even then "I was just a fan like everyone else."
He didn't move into the major Midwest ASA Late Model Stock Car series until 1987, when he was rookie of the year. But he parlayed several strong years in ASA into his first Winston Cup rides in 1990.
"It was a long time coming to get here, but it was well worth the wait," Musgrave said. "During the summer I did some autograph sessions at tracks in Wisconsin where I used to race. I'd look around and say, `Man, this is where I used to be and I finally got to where I am now and look how long it took.
"But there's a lot of drivers better than I am still running the short tracks who simply will not have a chance to get here."
Still, going from regularly winning to regularly not winning is tough.
"Last year, I went back to Wisconsin for the Slinger Nationals," Musgrave said. "I'd been out of that kind of car for quite awhile. Well, I jumped in the car and won the race. Had a heck of a battle with Butch Miller.
"And I got out of the car after winning and said to myself, `Yeah, I guess I can do this.'
"It's hard to adjust when you come from a place where you constantly won," he said. "You really get put in your place. But you can't let your ego get away.
"We've got the capability. We've got the people. We've got the equipment. We just have to have a little more education as far as myself being in Winston Cup and if everything falls in place, it could very well happen this year."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB