David Starr earned his eighth top-ten of the 2011 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season finishing Tenth Saturday evening in the Allegro Marinade Toyota at the Kentucky Speedway. Ron Hornaday Jr. won his fiftieth race in the series and third of 2011.
In the afternoon qualifying session, David qualified the No. 81 fourteenth on the mile and one half tri-oval track posting a lap of 30.61 seconds at 176.37 mph, putting the Allegro Marinade Toyota on the outside of the seventh row at the start of the 150-lap race.
The weather was chilly, but David looked strong at the start of the 225-mile race and it did not take long for the action to get started for Starr as he was racing side-by-side with Josh Richards for tenth place on lap four when Richard’s Toyota got loose and he spun hard into the outside wall causing the first of seven caution flags.
The second caution flew on lap 22 all of the leaders came to pit road including Starr, but the crew chiefs began varying strategies of gas only, two or four tires, shuffling positions at each stop. David would restart from twenty-second position following the early stop.
Track position would shift for all the lead lap trucks at each of the next five cautions that flew before the races halfway point. David would run as high as seventh on lap sixty and the black and yellow Allegro Marinade Toyota looked strong.
The races final caution flew on lap 87 and David was solidly in the top ten following the restart racing hard on the rough Kentucky Speedway surface. Though the teams would not know it at the time, the race would go green all the way to the checkers. Through the long green flag run David would run as high as eighth and as low as eighteenth as the trucks would come to pit road for service.
David gave up ninth place position and brought the Allegro Marinade No. 81 to pit road on lap 119 for his final stop taking four Goodyear tires and Sunoco racing gas dropping him two laps down to the leaders in eighteenth place. Several of the trucks took fuel only or just right side tires gaining track position. With twenty laps to go David was shown in fourteenth, but several trucks had yet to stop.
When the dust settled and all the drivers had cycled through their final stops under green David emerged just outside of the top-ten one lap down to leader Hornaday. Having taken four tires on the last stop paid-off as David was able to make up two positions over the last ten laps to earn his eighth top-ten of 2011. There were only six trucks on the lead lap at the finish.
“I want to thank John Fuqua and everyone at Allegro Marinade for coming on board with us again this week,” said Starr. “We enjoy having them at the track and appreciate their support.”
Despite the top-ten finish, Starr dropped to twelfth in the NCWTS driver’s standings behind leader Austin Dillon. With five races remaining on the 2011 schedule, he is now 26 points behind Parker Klingerman for the tenth spot.
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