02-14-2004 | Daytona Beach, FL

Even though he didn’t reach victory lane in his brand new Chevrolet Silverado race truck, Dennis Setzer and the Morgan-Dollar Motorsports race team served notice that they will be a force at ALL tracks this year – large and small.

Dennis Setzer and the forty-six crew are well known for their victories on the short tracks of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. If the Florida Dodge Dealers 250 at Daytona International Speedway is an indicator of things to come, Setzer will remove his short track tagline right away in 2004. Setzer has won five races with Morgan-Dollar Motorsports on short tracks, and seven of ten overall in the Craftsman Truck Series.

This weekend produced his best start and finish at the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Dennis started fourth, which was his best qualifying effort since ninth in 2002. Even though the team was not satisfied with their sixth-place finish, it was Setzer’s best of his Craftsman Truck Series career.

“Man we just could not get any help out there. I had a couple of shots there in the end, but just couldn’t get anyone to stay with me and give me the push I needed to get back to the front,” stated a disappointed Dennis Setzer after the race. “I am really proud of the way our team prepared for this race and how well we performed tonight. I think we were able to show just how strong our team has gotten in the past few months. I am also very pleased with the power under the hood that Richard Childress Racing gave us all weekend. We were all really happy that we were able to put our American Revolution Chevrolet Silverado up front for a good bit of the night. Chevrolet has some really exciting things going on right now on and off the track, and we really wanted to put the right truck in victory lane tonight.”

Dennis made his way to the point on lap 23. After a caution at lap 25, the team would pit on lap 29. The pit crew made a great stop as Setzer came in and left in first position.

Setzer fell back to fifth two laps past the restart, but would power his #46 American Revolution Chevrolet Silverado back to the front at lap 39. Contact with another truck on the next restart left minor damage on the nose of Setzer’s Chevrolet. The team made several attempts to patch it, but never got the handle back on the truck that it had at the beginning of the race.

Dennis would go on to lead a total of 19 laps, but was not able to get back to the front of the pack when it counted. The sixth-place finish will leave Setzer comfortably in sixth position in the overall point standings, and a few weeks to prepare until the season’s second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 13th.