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Ultra Motorsports was a NASCAR Winston Cup and Craftsman Truck Series racing team. Jim Smith helped start the team and the Craftsman Truck Series. It ran full time in the Craftsman Truck Series from 1995 to 2005, earning 31 series wins and a championship in 2005 with Ted Musgrave. Early in 2006, Ultra announced that they would close up shop after a fallout with Ford. == Winston Cup == Ultra Motorsports began running Winston Cup in 1994, when P. J. Jones drove the #06 Ford Thunderbird at Phoenix, finishing 29th, nine laps down. The next season, Butch Gilliland ran the #38 Ford at Sonoma, but finished 42nd after an early engine failure. Ultra returned to Cup in 1999 with the #32. Mike Wallace qualified at Richmond International Raceway, finishing 24th. Midway through 2000, Mattei Motorsports sold partial interest in the team to Ultra and Smith, who bought out Mattei one month later. The team inherited the #7 Chevrolet Monte Carlo and its driver Michael Waltrip, and kept the team's sponsorship with construction equipment rental service NationsRent. Waltrip left the team after a 29th-place points finish. In 2001, Ultra went back to fielding Fords and signed Mike Wallace to replace Waltrip. Wallace struggled and with the season entering its first road race at Sears Point, Ultra decided to go with a more experienced road course driver and hired Robby Gordon, who had been hired to replace Bobby Hamilton in the #4 Kodak car for Morgan-McClure Motorsports but was himself fired and replaced by Kevin Lepage early in the season, to drive the #7 on the road course. Gordon contended for the win most of the day, finally placing second and giving Ultra its best ever finish. Wallace returned to the car afterward, but left the team to replace the fired Jeremy Mayfield at Penske Racing in October and Lepage replaced him after leaving the #4 team. For the 2002 season, Ultra underwent three significant changes. As the previous season was drawing to a close, Evernham Motorsports announced it had signed Jeremy Mayfield to drive for the team. Since Evernham's team, one of the charter teams in Dodge's return to NASCAR, already had two drivers under contract, this required some maneuvering to be done. Ultra and Evernham, therefore, struck an agreement. Mayfield would join Bill Elliott on Evernham's team and take over the #19 Dodge-sponsored car. The #19's incumbent driver, Casey Atwood, would then move over to Ultra and take over the #7. In return, Evernham and Ultra would enter into a partnership where Ultra would switch from Ford to Dodge and the team would become known as Ultra-Evernham Motorsports, with Sirius Satellite Radio coming on to sponsor the #7 and the team adopting Evernham's car numbering style. The arrangement did not last the entire season. Atwood, who had finished third in the Rookie of the Year standings in 2001, struggled mightily in the #7 and Smith elected to release him with two races left in the season and promote Truck Series driver Jason Leffler to finish the season. Evernham responded by pulling their support from Ultra and thus the team went back to simply being known as Ultra Motorsports. Despite the troubles, Ultra remained with Dodge and Sirius for 2003. Leffler returned to the Truck Series and Smith hired Jimmy Spencer to pilot the #7. This was Spencer's third team in as many seasons; he had left the #26 Kmart-sponsored Ford Haas-Carter Motorsports to take over for Leffler at Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of 2001, only to be replaced by Casey Mears as driver of the #41 Target-sponsored Dodge after 2002. Despite being suspended for one race after an altercation with Kurt Busch, Spencer managed to improve the team's final positioning and finished 29th with four top ten finishes. Ultra even expanded to field a second car for Ted Musgrave in selected races, carrying Sirius sponsorship and #07. The team ran only two races in 2004 after struggling to find a sponsor. In 2005, Robby Gordon purchased the team and named it Robby Gordon Motorsports. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ultra Motorsports」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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