Contenders Sprague, Riggs bitten by bad luck

JOLIET, Ill. -- Saturday's Tropicana Twister 300 proved quite costly for championship contenders Jack Sprague and Scott Riggs, both of whom made premature exits after a bite from the bad luck bug.

	Jack Sprague

Sprague had motor trouble, while Riggs was the victim of a single-car accident, enabling Greg Biffle to stretch his points lead to 47 points over Jason Keller, 150 over Sprague and 207 over Riggs.

After having successfully completed each of the series' first 17 events, Sprague has posted two consecutive DNFs.

Sprague's first premature failure of the year came one week ago at Daytona, when he was caught up in a late-race accident, finished 28th, and subsequently surrendered the series points lead to Biffle.

He entered this weekend's event seeking redemption, but was out of the event early once again, as motor trouble dropped him from competition just 15 laps into the race.

"The word I'm hearing is that we broke a cam shaft," Sprague said. "It's a freak deal. We've had great motors all year. We struggled really bad all weekend, but (crew chief) Dennis (Connor) changed a lot of things and I think we had it. It was pretty good. I think I had a top-10 car and broke. We've had a terrible month."

Since winning his first career NBS event on June 8, Sprague has finished no better than 14th.

Scott Riggs hit the wall hard on lap 124.

As for Riggs, he was dominant for a time Saturday before bowing out early on lap 124. The race leader for 49 of the first 50 circuits, Riggs lost control of his Ford heading into Turn 3 and hit the wall hard, eliminating him from competition early for the second time in three weeks.

He quickly pulled down the window net, but upon exit of the car was visibly in pain on his right-side rib area. Riggs was transported by ground to Provena Saint Joseph's Hospital in Joliet, Ill., for X-rays on his right ribcage area.