Stewart

RICHMOND, Va. -- Tony Stewart passed Ted Musgrave for the lead with 16 laps to go Thursday night and got his second consecutive NASCAR truck series victory at Richmond International Raceway.

Stewart, making only his third career appearance in the series, started 27th in a field of 36. He took his Chevrolet to the lead for the second time when he passed longtime leader Bobby Hamilton on the 177th lap of the Virginia is for Lovers 200.

After Musgrave nudged Hamilton, sending him spinning in turns three and four, Musgrave pulled even with Stewart and edged ahead crossing the start-finish line with 17 laps to go. But the Winston Cup champion, who races Saturday on the three-quarter-mile oval in the Chevrolet 400, quickly regrouped.

He passed Musgrave on the backstretch and ran the rest of the race on old tires, unable to hold the lower line through the turns at each end of the track but strong enough to never really have his lead threatened.

Robert Pressley passed Musgrave with just over two laps to go to get second. Musgrave was followed across the line by Jon Wood, Dennis Setzer, Rick Crawford and new Craftsman series points leader Brendan Gaughan.

Gaughan, who rallied from a crash on the 62nd of 200 laps, now leads Travis Kvapil by five points with eight races. It was the sixth consecutive race that produced a new points leader.

Musgrave is third, 39 points behind Gaughan.

Hamilton, who led three times for 74 laps, dropped to 13th when he pitted for tires after the crash, then rallied to finish eighth, followed by Kvapil and Johnny Sauter, who started at the back of the field.

The race also featured the truck series debut of Jimmy Spencer, and "Mr. Excitement" was providing plenty until a restart with 46 laps to go.

Running second behind Hamilton, Spencer was clipped in the rear by the truck of Terry Cook, who'd been nudged into a wiggle by Matt Crafton. The impact sent Spencer slamming into the wall, ending his evening.

Spencer, who returned to action last week after serving a one-race suspension for punching Kurt Busch following a Winston Cup race at Michigan, parked the truck in the middle of the track and stormed away.

"I really think we had something for them," he said. "I really thought we could have won the race, but not when a guy gets into you."