PFLUGER SCORES SECOND ASA SPEED TRUCK WIN OF THE YEAR AT THE ORANGE SHOW

Source: Dave Grayson
Date: 07/16/2007

The ASA-Go Fast-Speed Truck Challenge Series paid a July 14th visit to the Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. When the checkers flew at the conclusion of the 75-lap feature Victor Pfluger parked his #80 Parker Farms/Copperstate Tire Dodge in victory lane for the second time this season. He also put a little padding on his series championship point’s lead which before this race was only one point ahead of defending champion Darren Young. Some of that padding came from a five point bonus for setting the fastest time in qualifying. Pfluger toured the Orange Show Speedway's quarter mile oval with a time of 14.043 seconds. A pre-race roll of the dice inverted the field by three positions and put Scott Franchimone and Young on the front row for the feature. Once under green flag racing conditions, the cream of the ASA Speed Truck Challenge Series quickly rose to the top. By lap six the running order was Franchimone, Young, Pfluger, King and Rzesnowiecky. All five trucks were glued to each other's bumpers like a high speed freight train. But that high speed train completely derailed on lap 42. Sensing it was go time; Young began putting a lot of pressure on Franchimone. Coming off of turn two there was some contact and both trucks bounced off of the backstretch wall. A quick thinking Pfluger dove to the bottom of the track to avoid the incident and to take the lead. Pfluger's reaction time would turn out to be the winning move of the race. Making lap 42 even more bizarre was the fact that United Racing teammates Young and Rzesnowiecky managed to hit each other coming out of turn three. Both trucks were sent to the rear of the field. On the restart, Pfluger took advantage of the clean air in front of his Dodge and quickly ran away from the field with King doing everything he could to catch him. Pfluger's truck was riding on rails and soon held a half lap lead over his competition. But that lead evaporated with four laps left in the event. Tim Allen's truck spun in turn four to bring out the second and final yellow flag of the race. With another great restart however, Pfluger made quick work of the remaining laps and parked his Dodge in victory lane. Randel King and Andy Allen followed him across the line. Darren Young and Bear Rzesnowiecky made quick work of charging through the field to complete the top five. After the race, Pfluger commented on the lap 42 incident that put him into the lead and said "I couldn't believe it. It was really hard racing between Scott Franchimone and Darren Young. I’m still not sure who did what but they both started going up the race track and I had a big enough hole for me to squeeze through so we could move to the front and we just rode with it from there. Our truck was built for us to run out front this weekend but the dice inversion before the race put us back to third. When we were back in traffic, I couldn't quite drive my line while trying to keep up with everybody else. But when that Parker Farms Dodge got into clean air it just took off like a rocket ship,” a beaming Pfluger concluded. Commenting on the extra points that he picked up on Darren Young in the championship race Pfluger said "I hate to see anybody have a bad night especially when we're all fighting for a championship. I would have rather raced Darren for that win, but I'm sure there will be a lot more racing to come with him and having a more comfortable points lead isn't something that I'm going to disagree with," Pfluger laughed. Randel King was happy with his second place finish and said, "We had an awesome truck tonight and I've got to thank my team. We were really strong in the beginning and definitely there. Right before that first caution came out about halfway through the race, we broke a drive plate in the rear end. That made it hard to hang onto to the truck towards the end because it would try to snap loose in the center of the corner. I still think we could have pulled off a strong win at the end of the race but it was overall a good run for the Hype Manufacturing/Clay Andrews Racing Chevy Colorado."

See Also .:

• Victor Pfluger Driver Card
• Orange Show Speedway Track Page

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