The “Rocket” launches in San Bernardino

By Dave Grayson

Randel “The Rocket” King launched his Hype Manufacturing Dodge right out of the front row and won a very impressive victory in the Lucas Oil ASA Speed Truck Challenge Series, presented by Go Fast, held March 17th at the Orange Show Speedway a quarter mile paved oval in San Bernardino-California. The 14 year old driver, from Riverside-California, was clearly the class of the field on this ST Patrick’s Day evening and dominated the 100 lap event from the first lap to the final one enroute to his first series win. 

This is not to imply that King had an easy night in San Bernardino. Far from it. He earned every lap he led and had to hold off a repeated challenge from reigning series champion Darren Young who did everything he could to take the win away from the young driver. Young, a member of the series’ powerful United Nissan team, was literally glued to the leader’s bumper hoping that King would make that one little wiggle of a mistake that would allow him to take command of the race.

King’s race rhythm was disrupted a total of five times for caution flags but steady hand restarts allowed him to pull away by one or two truck lengths everytime to re establish his lead just enough before the field closed up on his rear bumper again. The top five came across the line, on lap 100, in a single line freight train bumper to bumper. Team United Nissan’s second truck, driven by Las Vegas’ Bear Rzenowiecky, followed the leaders under the checkers for an equally impressive third place finish while Victor Pfluger and Scott Franchimone completed the top five.

After parking in the Orange Show Speedway’s victory lane the very happy winner said “this is just unbelieveable. I just can’t thank Hype Manufacturing enough. This is a great way to start a still young season. In the first race of the year, (March 3d at the I 10 Speedway in Blythe), we had some tough luck with a flat tire while sitting in third with 20 laps to go. This is a great rebound effort for the team especially in the first part of the year. In 2006 we won the series’ Rookie Of The Year title. In 2007 we’re planning on being the 2007 ASA Speed Truck Challenge Series champion. I just can’t thank my crew chielf, Dallas Leininger, enough this was just an awesome truck all night long.”

Standing alongside victory lane and taking in the celebration was the race winner’s father, Scott King, who smiled broadly and looked very much like a proud father.”This is so awesome I can barely talk,” he said adding “you know he ran really good all of last year. We didn’t get that first win but the team ran good.We were just hoping and praying that we could get a win out of this deal and he did a really good job.”

Yet one more very impressive aspect to Randel King is the fact that the young driver is part of a development program with one of the most prestigious race shops in the western states: Clay Andrews Racing. This is the same organization who, in 2006, put driver David Gilleland behind the wheel of a NASCAR Busch Series car and pulled off a stunning win, at the Kentucky Speedway, in only the team’s seventh start. As we all know now, that moment in time led to Gilleland’s present ride in the Nextel Cup Series.

Any serious observer of the ASA Speed Truck Challenge Series will tell you that Clay Andrews made a very smart decision when he recognized the talent and the potential of Randel King.