After a disappointing finish last weekend at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS, Tyler Young rebounded in Friday night’s NC Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway with a solid top-20 finish.
The Young’s Motorsports team, led by veteran crew chief Bryan Berry, spent five hours at the 1.5-mile speedway Thursday dialing in the No. 02 AKL Insurance Group Chevrolet Silverado for the fifth race of the season. Following their debrief, the team was highly optimistic about their chances for a strong effort under the lights Friday night.
With qualifying the only activity on deck before Friday night’s race, the team’s game plan was to sneak their truck through the first round of time trials before laying their power lap during the second 10-minute session. Unfortunately, on his qualifying lap, a truck spun freezing the field, leaving Young unable to complete his timed lap. The team would be forced to line up 20th for the race, their third straight top-20 qualifying run.
When the green flag dropped, Young found himself on the move early, quickly putting his Silverado inside the top-15. As the first run of the night pressed on, a loose No. 02 AKL Insurance Group Chevrolet sent Young sliding backwards.
The first caution of the night waved on Lap 21 for a spin on the frontstretch. The Midland, Texas native reported that his truck was loose. Berry acknowledged the feedback with four tires, fuel and a chassis adjustment.
Restarting 17th, Young maintained a presence inside the top-20, despite battling a now tight Chevrolet Silverado. During the green flag run, Young would lose a lap to the leaders, but found himself battling fellow competitor Ray Black Jr. for the free pass.
Berry would have another opportunity to make adjustments on a Lap 64 caution – loaded with four fresh Goodyear tires, fuel and another round of chassis adjustments.
With the race settling into a long green-flag run, the team began to prepare for a potential green-flag pit stop. Berry reported to his driver that he was nine laps shy of the finish. Ultimately, Young would never have to make that green flag stop as the caution waved on Lap 115 for an accident on the backstretch.
Loaded up with fuel and tires, Young was set for the finish.
Restarting 18th, the 24-year old would maintain the same spot and survive a green-white-checkered finish to claim his third top-20 finish in 2015.
Quote:
“As much as we tried, we struggled to get the right balance on our No. 02 AKL Insurance Group Chevrolet. We started the race loose, made some adjustments, but the longer we ran under green (flag conditions), the tighter our truck became. I’m proud of Bryan (Berry) and the entire Young’ Motorsports team for their efforts this weekend. It was a long two days, but we made some gains and had a good point’s night, so we’ll take those positives and set our sights on Dover. I like that place and hope we’ll find ourselves in position to score our first top-10 finish of the season.”
Young Motorsports PR
