THREE DIFFERENT WINNERS IN THREE RACES

Source: Dave Grayson
Date: 04/06/2008

It has become clearly evident that season number 12 of the ASA, TVT 24-7, Speed Truck Challenge Series, ASA-STC,is now well on its way to becoming quite possibly one of the most competitive years in the series' history. This regional touring series for mid sized trucks so far has held three races on its 2008 schedule and has seen three different winners take the checkered flag. It happened again, April 5th, at the Toyota Speedway in Irwindale when Todd McLauchlan become the series's newest visitor to victory lane.

The Toyota TRD 50 was a race that was sprint like in nature for the Speed Truck teams and that meant it was "go" time from the very moment the green waved in the air. Darren Young, in his United Nissan Racing Chevrolet, set the fast time earlier in the day during qualifying by touring the fastest half mile oval in the west at 90.493 MPH. The pre race roll of the invert dice came up four and that placed Billy Wease, also driving a Chevrolet for United Nissan Racing, on the pole position.

Wease immediately set the pace and led the 16 starters into turn one. Young made quick work of moving from fourth to second and the two United Nissan Racing Chevrolets hooked up with each other and set a blistering pace around the half mile oval. After 16 laps of being patient Young made his move on this team mate and took command of the race on lap 17. One lap later McLauchlan moved into second and the race for the lead was on. He staged a door to door battle with Young for nearly five laps before he was able to slide up in front of him to take the lead for good.

In the final moments of the Toyota TRD 50 Dallas Colodny made his presence known and began racing hard in an attempt to take over second. As McLauchlan drove under the checkers for his first win of the season, Young and Colodny followed him literally door to door with Young taking the position by a mere matter of inches. Wease followed them across the line to take fourth while Jason Black scored another top five finish towards his quest for a championship.

After cooling off in victory lane McLauchlan said "I've got to thank my crew. They have been working their butts off all week long just to get us out here. I got to come out here and drive this thing and have some fun. I'm just glad I could give them something back in return." One of the secrets to McLauchlan's success was a pre race decision to lower the air pressure in their tires. Explaining that move the race winner said "we started with a lower tire pressure so we needed time in the early going to allow the heat to build up the tire pressures and get our truck working. It worked for us. This truck has been running on a rail for the last three races and I just love this thing. This being a 50 lapper meant it was a sprint race and we knew that we were going to have to have something left for the end. "

Despite having to settle for second place United Nissan Racing's Darren Young was all smiles after the race. Commenting on his evening in Irwindale the two time series champion said "I've got to thank the United Nissan guys for giving me a good truck tonight. The final outcome was definitely not what I want to accomplish tonight but considering everything that we went through the last couple of days I'll take a second place and congratulations to Todd for finishing the way he did" When asked to clarify the meaning of "everything we went through", Young laughed and said "when we got here on Friday we had quite a few different things that we were testing and it seemed like we lost the handle on it. We threw everything at it but the kitchen sink. Actually I think we did throw the kitchen sink at it plus more. We just fought a real tight situation all through practice and all the way up to the Saturday's final practice session. In my eyes we only had one practice today and that was it. We just missed it by one practice otherwise I think we would have been right there."

The ASA,TVT 24-7, Speed Truck Challenge Series teams now gets two weeks off to rest and then prepare for race number four of the 2008 season. They will return to action on April 26th at the always challenging Lucas Oil I 10 Speedway's quarter mile oval in Blythe-California.

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