Second Straight Week Tire Problem Slows Starr

Two weeks ago a flat tire with less than ten laps to go in Atlanta cost David Starr and the SS Green Light Racing team a possible top-five finish. The team has had it’s share of bad luck this season and for the second race in a row, a flat tire would cost Starr another strong finish Friday night in Chicago.

Following qualifying, Crew Chief Jason Miller chose to make repairs to the nose of Starr’s Toyota Tundra forcing the Zachry/ASL Limited/BYF No. 81 to drop to the tail of the 36-truck field at the start of the Fast Five 225.

David did not stay at the back for long, moving up eight positions on the first lap of the race and was up to twenty-fourth when the first caution flew for debris on lap ten. Starr radioed to the crew that his Toyota was “rolling over on the right front tire” causing the rear of the truck to snap free in the center of the corners.

Though many of the leaders stayed on the track during the early caution, Miller brought David to the attention of the SS Green Light Racing crew for Sunoco racing gas and to raise the hood checking the right front suspension for possible issues. The extended stop dropped Starr back to twenty-seventh place.

The early stop would allow Starr to stay on the track when the leaders were all forced to stop for fuel during a long green that followed. By lap fifty-two only eight trucks were on the lead lap with David following Todd Bodine and Brendan Gaughan who had also chose to stop under the first caution. The SS Green Light crew was hoping for a caution, but it did not come so Miller called David to give up the third position and head to the pits for fuel and Goodyear tires on lap 58.

“The truck gets better as times goes on, it’s pretty good at the end of the run.” Starr told Miller as he came to the pits. Typical of the bad luck that has plagues the team this year, just as the crew jacked up the No. 81 the caution would fly for fluid on the track, stranding Starr a lap down to the leaders.

Dodging a bullet the team would receive the “wave around” to the tail of the field and would restart in fifteenth place on lap 65 back on the lead lap.

With adjusted air pressures in his Toyota, David would make a move towards the top-ten following the restart. He was racing side-by-side with Timothy Peters for thirteenth on lap 75 when Peters got loose and slid up the track into the Zachry Tundra cutting the sidewall of the left rear tire. A slow drive around the mile and a half Chicagoland Speedway and the pit stop left Starr three laps down in twenty-second place.

“Your running lap times equal to the sixth or seventh place trucks,” Miller told his driver near the end of the race.

Running competitive lap times, David would race hard over the second half of the race picking up three positions to finish in nineteenth place behind winner Austin Dillon.

“We weren’t very good with low air pressures, but as the pressures built up and the fuel burned off our Toyota was pretty good,” Starr explained. “We just need a little good luck to get the finishes. We were good enough at the end to finish in the top-ten. We’ll bring this truck to Kentucky in a couple weeks, it should be good there.”

Starr lost one spot in the NCWTS driver’s standings, now twelfth behind point leader James Buescher.

SS Green Light Racing PR