Focused on expanding his racing resume, Wilton, Calif. native Dylan Lupton will make his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) debut this Saturday’s fred’s 250 fueled by Coca-Cola at Talladega Superspeedway for Young’s Motorsports.
Lupton, a NASCAR Next alumnus will become the fourth driver to compete in all three of NASCAR’s national series this year aboard the No. 02 Young’s Motorsports / Breast Cancer Awareness Chevrolet Silverado.
The Californian has made two NASCAR XFINITY Series starts for RSS Racing and two Sprint Cup Series starts for BK Racing.
“This is a great opportunity at Talladega,” said 22-year-old Lupton. “I’m extremely appreciative to Tyler (Young), Andrew (Abbott, crew chief) and the entire Young’s Motorsports team for giving me this opportunity. Obviously, Talladega is a crapshoot, but we’re focused on going down there and giving it all. I’m hoping we can find ourselves in a good position to have a good finish when the race is all said and done.”
Lupton will pilot the same truck Young’s Motorsports driver Tyler Young raced to a career-best sixth place performance in February at Daytona International Speedway. Lupton, a multiple NASCAR K&N Pro Series West winner also will be guided by his BK Racing Cup spotter Chris Monez.
Although limited with restrictor plate experience, Lupton did compete in the ARCA Racing Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway for Empire Racing. After qualifying 17th, Lupton quickly drafted to inside the top-five before an engine failure resulted in a 24th place finish.
“I’m glad I have some drafting experience, even though I expect the truck to be a lot different than the ARCA car,” Lupton added. “I’ve talked to Tyler and some of my other friends that race trucks and they’ve told me what to expect this weekend. I know these trucks tend to bounce around a lot in the draft and that the closure rate is extremely quick. I think it’s going to be a blast out there, but I also know I have a job to do too.”
With fred’s 250 serving as an elimination race for the inaugural NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase, Lupton knows that two drivers will not carry over into the Round of 6 next weekend at Martinsville, but he knows that Talladega despite the Chase offers him an opportunity to shine.
Remembering though – he wants to do it respectfully.
“I expect the truck race being a Chase race to be crazy, but that’s Talladega in itself,” he said. “We’ll race our race. We’ll have a plan and we’ll stick to it. I know I’ll have a rookie stripe on my bumper, but I’m hoping I’ll have some drafting partners when it matters most.”
Tyler Young, team principal at Young’s Motorsports said his team is excited for Lupton to driver their truck at Talladega.
“Dylan came to Las Vegas and he really gelled with the team,” Young said. “He is a determined driver with a lot of heart, passion and motivation. That’s exactly what we like to see at Young’s Motorsports. I think even though he doesn’t have any experience in a truck, he’ll be fine at Talladega. He has a great group of people around and we look to have a duplicate performance from Daytona.”
After finishing second in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West championship in 2014, Lupton advanced to the NASCAR XFINITY Series in 2015 in a partial schedule with Athenian Motorsports. Additionally, Lupton has been elected twice to the NASCAR Next program. An evolution of the Next9 initiative that began in 2011, the NASCAR Next program (2014-2015 and 2015-2016) is an all-embracing industry initiative to help spotlight the sport’s rising stars – and boost fan recognition around talent that will grow into NASCAR Sprint Cup Series mainstays.
In particular, Lupton has been an advocate for the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) project where he has spent time informing students about the fundamentals of NASCAR and how each subject applies.
Lupton graduated this past May with a bachelor’s degree in Business Finance from UNC Charlotte.
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