Charlotte II: Jack Sprague preview

* Jack Sprague and the Haas CNC Racing team will attempt to qualify for this weekend's UAW-GM Quality 500. It will be Sprague's second attempt of a four race agenda this season in the No. 60 car.

* Sprague has never competed in a Winston Cup event at Charlotte.

* Sprague qualified 23rd and finished 35th in his first WC event of the season last weekend at Kansas Speedway.

* Sprague will be racing the same car he had in Kansas.

* Sprague performed a two-day test session at Charlotte in order to prepare for this Weekends Atlanta Motor Speedway this week.

SPRAGUE'S THOUGHTS ON LAST WEEKS RACE AT KANAS
"Last weeks finish certainly wasn't what we were looking for. We started out really good and the Haas car was fast in practice and it qualified pretty good. We're using the four races this year as a learner curve, but learning how to wreck isn't what we had in mind. We're not in this deal to look like fools and finishing 35th doesn't help us look good. The car we had at Kansas was fast and I think we were eighth quickest on the charts, but we only had 36 laps to show anything. I hope this week is better for the Haas CNC Racing team."

THOUGHTS ON SUNDAY'S UAW-GM QUALITY 500 RACE...
"I'm looking forward to running the Winston Cup race at Charlotte. We were supposed to run the race back in May, but we didn't feel like we were fully prepared or could be competitive and you need to be competitive anywhere you go - especially Charlotte and the way the track changes all the time. We tested here and it went really good, so I think we have a decent shot at making the race and getting ourselves a good starting spot. We don't have any points to go on in order to make these few races, so we need to really be focused on everything we do. The goal this weekend is to make the race and get a good day of racing - a full day of racing in."

CREW CHIEF DENNIS CONNOR ON THE HAAS CNC RACING TEAM
"We've got ourselves a system worked out for the four races this year. Earlier in the season I hired a few people to assist the Busch crew members that would be working on the Cup car. We've got a guy driving the hauler to the tracks and a small crew of guys preparing the car for Jack for practice. After he gets out of the Busch car, a few members of the Busch crew go over and help out during the Cup practice. There's a lot of running back and forth, but on race day everything seemed to smooth out because the majority of the group is from Saturday's deal. It worked out pretty well a few weeks ago in Kansas and as the year goes on we'll get more guys to help out."

EQUIPMENT FOR CHARLOTTE RACE
Sprague will be running the same car he had at Kansas Speedway two weeks ago. Extensive testing with four different cars showed this is the best one the Haas CNC Racing team has. The car was built in-house and one Sprague thought be a great car. It has a new nose on it for the 500-mile event and should run just as good as it did before it's cosmetic repair.

ABOUT HAAS AUTOMATION
Haas Automation, Inc. is located in Oxnard, California and is the largest, most modern machine tool manufacturing operations in the United States, manufacturing four major product lines with nearly 900 employees. Haas Automation, Inc. builds a full line of CNC vertical machining centers, horizontal machining centers, CNC lathes, rotary tables and 5C indexers. President Gene Haas founded the company in 1983 and in 1987 began developing its first vertical machining center (VMC) to perform machining operations, such as milling, drilling, tapping and boring and cost competitive with offshore manufacturers. Today, Haas Corporate Headquarters are located in Oxnard, California. It is the largest, most modern machine tool manufacturing operation in the United States, manufacturing four major product lines with nearly 900 employees.

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