United Racing looks for redemption at Tucson Raceway Park

by Dave Grayson

The ASA Speed Truck Challenge, presented by Go Fast, will return to action this Saturday to take on the challenge on the multi banking oval at Tucson Raceway Park, TRP, for the second time this season. United Racing will be leaving their Las Vegas race shop towards the end of the week to make the long trek to Tucson.

When they arrive at TRP team drivers Darren Young and Bear Rzesnowiecky  will be looking for looking for some well deserved redemption.

The two drivers and their Chevrolet Trucks, sponsored by United Nissan and Quaker State, experienced some frustration during their last visit to TRP back on April 21st. While in the process of creating another top five finish Darren Young experienced late in the race handling problems. Despite the problems he manhandled his truck around TRP’s half mile oval and salvaged a ninth place finish.

Meanwhile Rzesnowieckly was also in the process of creating his own top five finish at TRP. Unfortunately that effort was upstaged by a cut tire that forced an unscheduled, green flag, trip to the pits. The trip down pit road placed him a lap down and he left TRP with a 15th place finish.

This is not to imply that the drivers from United Racing are having a tough season. Far from it. Actually both Young and Rzesnowiecky are having a banner year and are very much involved in the ASA Speed Truck championship picture. Going into next Saturday night’s race Young, a two series champion, is second in the points standings and only seven points behind the leader Victor Pfluger. In six races Young has two wins, four top five and two top ten finishes.

The Gilbert-Arizona driver is one of the series’ road course specialists and he proved that point by winning the last two races in a row. The first win came on May 7th on the Firebird International Raceway’s road course. The second victory was on June 2nd when the series ran a race on the California Speedway’s infield road course.

As a soon to be 15 year old rookie in the ASA Speed Truck Challenge Rzesnowiecky is well on his way to having a very good season as well. He currently is holding down fourth in the standings and is only 34 points behind the leader with plenty of time to make a charge towards the top of the point rankings. In the first six races of the season the Las Vegas driver has one win, four top five and one top ten finishes.

Like his team mate Rzesnowiecky will be arriving at TRP this weekend with a great deal of momentum behind him. That’s due to an impressive June 23d win in the Legend Car Series at the Las Vegas Bullring. There’s actually a very interesting story that led the third generation driver to the win at his home track. The racing Rzesnowieckys originally planned on racing their Legend car during the annual road course event at the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. The special event was part of the huge NASCAR Nextel Cup weekend.

At the beginning of June the team sent their Legend engines to a shop to be freshened up. But the Sonoma plans fell apart when the the freight company, who was supposed to transport the engines back to their race shop, somehow lost them. The mistake was eventually cleared up but until after the Infineon race weekend.

Bear’s father, veteran race driver Steve Rzesnowiecky, turned his attention to the Las Vegas race. He had to borrow a motor plus do some major repairs on the car due to crash damage created by another driver in the car from earlier in the season. But the effort was well worth as he watched his son scorch the 30 car field to win the race.

The racing stage is now set for this Saturday in Tuscon and both drivers will be arriving at TRP with the momentum of a winner. You can fully expect United Racing to be ready, willing and able to get the job done in Tucson because that’s how they roll.