Rick Crawford has the No. 14 painted on the side of his F-150 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, but three ended up being his number this weekend in Martinsville and Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 26 Fusion in the Nextel Cup Series takes top honors as the highest qualifier and race finisher for Ford.
Crawford drove his No. 14 F-150 to a third place finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race and moved up to third in the standings. "It was real solid," said Crawford. "It was just a good, hard race and typical Martinsville."
"This whole Circle Bar race team, including David [Starr] with his best finish this year, is trying to turn the corner with two good finishes here lately and that's what it's gonna take to win a championship."
Crawford's teammate, Starr, wheeled his No. 10 F-150 to an 11 th place finish, the best he's finished all year. Starr credited his win to having an awesome truck all weekend. "This gives us some momentum because we've been struggling all year long," said Starr. "It's not what we wanted, but we're moving closer to the front and my team did a great job. We're excited with the progress of getting better, but we still have a lot more work to do."
In the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 26 Fusion had a strong showing this weekend in Martinsville. McMurray qualified second for the race and finished in ninth place. McMurray was excited about his third top-10 finish in four races. "I feel great, especially going into the off week," said McMurray. "It's so good to have a good run. We'll go to Richmond to test the Car of Tomorrow on Tuesday and Wednesday, but life is good right now."
David Ragan, driver of the No. 6 Fusion finished in 15th place and was the top rookie of the race. Ragan recovered after running a lap down in only his second Nextel Cup race in Martinsville. Last year, he finished 25 th at this track, but has learned a lot about racing around short tracks since then. "It was just a lot smarter race on my behalf," said Ragan. You don't have to go hard for 500 laps, you have to go as hard as your car will let you, but when we got a lap down, we didn't panic."
The NASCAR Nextel Cup and Truck Series both have the weekend off next week, but the NASCAR Busch Series will race in Nashville on Saturday, April 7.