Young outguns the ASA Speed Truck competition at Fontana road course

by Dave Grayson

Darren Young pulled a brilliant restart move, coming off of a full course yellow, that helped him win the June 2nd ASA-Go Fast-Speed Truck Challenge race at the California Speedway in Fontana. The Gilbert-Arizona driver, who pilots the #18 United Nissan-Quaker State Chevrolet for United Racing, took the lead for good at the start of lap 13 on the California Speedway’s extremely challenging, multi turn, 1.5 mile road course located inside of the speedway’s infield area. However, the unique aspect of this race was the fact that it was more about time that laps.

This event had no pre determined ammount of laps such as the 100 lap features the series runs on short ovals. Instead, this race had a 30 minute time limit which meant it was go time for the drivers the moment they drove under the initial green flag. They only had 30 minutes to advance their positions and the element of time created several exciting racing senarios that ran from the very front to the rear of the 24 truck field.

Earlier in the day Randel King set the fast time in qualifying in his Hype Manufacturing/Clay Andrews Racing Chevrolet. The young Riverside driver toured the California Speedway’s road course with a time of 1:13:476 which clocked out to 88.192 MPH. However, the pre race inversion dice rolled a three and that put Bear Rzesnowiecky, the second driver from United Racing, and his #3 United Nissan-Quaker State Chevrolet on the pole position. Scott Franchimone, and his #01 Aspen Builders-M&M Wiring Chevrolet joined him on the front row.At the start of the race Rzesnowiecky jumped into the lead and paced the field of trucks for the first 10 laps before a spin out, and eventually a stalled truck, brought out the first full course yellow caution flag.

It was at this point when Darren Young worked his restart magic. Young’s Chevrolet was in third when the green flag reappeared.He dived to the inside and, by the time the field made it to turn one, emerged as the new leader of the race. Two green flag circuits later, the field was back under a full course yellow due to another on track incident.

Young, once again, worked his restart magic and opened up a three truck length lead by the time he led the field through turn one. But the run was very short lived when a two truck accident brought out the third, and final, full course yellow. This was the point of the race where the element of time played in Young’s favor. This final yellow flag came at the tail end of the race’s time limit and, two caution laps later, Young received the checkered flag. Rzesnowiecky, King, Victor Pfluger and Paul Bonaccorsi completed the top five.

The California Speedway win was the second of the 2007 season for the two time series champion. It also marked Young’s second consecutive win both, of which, were on road courses and he also became the first repeat winner of the year in a highly competitive season that has produced five different winners in the first five races.

In victory lane Young commented on the first restart move that provided the race winning edge and said “during the very first full course yellow I believe everybody in front of me must have started in second gear and I was in first gear. As soon as I saw the green flag come out, I just nailed it. I caught them and, all of a sudden, I thought should I let off of this thing because these guys just aren’t going. I just stayed in it and everybody on the radio kept saying it’s all good. I can’t believe how much more power I had and it was basically because of the gear selection. I was able to start in first gear instead of having to start in second and that was, obviously, where I made all of my passing on those restarts.”

Commenting on the second restart, where he was able to pull away from the field, Young said “I thought to myself there’s no way this same deal is going to happen two times in a row. The guys started in second gear, I started in first and to my advantage I was able to pull right out. You know the other guys were probably a little bit faster: Randel,(King), and my team mate, (Bear Rzesnowiecky), in the short stuff. But, obviously, this is a road course so it’s a long track and there were other areas where I was faster. I was just able to capitalize on it.”

Bear Rzesnowiecky gave United Racing a one-two finish and after the race commented on that first restart saying “I didn’t have it first gear, I just didn’t think about it and he just went by me flying.” Actually Rzesnowiecky had a very good afternoon at the California Speedway with his second place finish when you consider the fact that a practice mishap the afternoon before almost removed him from the competition. “I got a little loose after coming off a rumble strip, hit the grass and then right into the wall,” he explained adding “but my team was able to get the rear of the truck straightened out and get me back to running fast.” Rzesnowiecky didn’t have a lot of time for talking after the race. He remained in the pit area long enough to insure that his United Racing truck cleared tech inspection and then hit the freeway for his native Las Vegas where he competed in a Legends race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s Bullring.

Randel King was all smiles after the race after following his third place finish and said “we did good, we definitely had the fastest truck that out qualified the field by eight tenths. We got a little shuffled back at the start but we did all right. We were definitely fast at the end of the race but we just didn’t have anyplace to go it’s a really short track.” Commenting on the full course yellows during the race, King said “they were a little frustrating but the crew here at the California Speedway did an awesome job of clearing the track as soon as they could. I definitely think we would have had something at the end because our goal was to save our truck for the end of the race. I definitely we would have been there for the end.”

Series points leader Victor Pfluger brought his #80 Parker Farms-Copperstate Tire Dodge to a fourth place finish and after the race said “we had a rough weekend. We started the weekend fastest in practice but when we went out for qualifying we fell three seconds off of the pace and just couldn’t figure it out until we discovered a loose spark plug wire. It was a little frustrating for us because it left us with a tenth place starting position. Coming out of tenth we just used the restarts that we had which is awkward for a road course. The truck turned out to be amazing and we brought it up to fourth.”

Rancho Cucamonga’s Paul Bonnaccorsi is a new comer to the ASA-Go Fast-Speed Truck Challenge Series and leased a truck from Paul Andrews Racing which he brought home to a fifth place finish. It was a lot of fun and we had a pretty good truck especially during the long runs. I don’t think the track was too tough but,(laughing), the crowd was. This is a pretty rough crowd to race with while going from oval racing to road racing but I had a good time,” he said. We were just trying this series to see if I like it and want to go into it next season or do some other type of combination oval and road racing series,” he added.