Tyler Young plagued by handling woes at Texas

After a solid qualifying effort at Texas Motor Speedway Friday afternoon, Tyler Young and the Young’s Motorsports team battled handling woes during Friday night’s Striping Technology 350 hindering them from a solid finish in the 21st race of the season.

The handling woes were spotted early on in the weekend. While a wet race track forced the postponement of practice on Thursday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway, the teams did receive a one hour session early Friday morning which saw Young in his No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco Chevrolet Silverado lay down the 24th quickest lap overall.

After conferring with crew chief Andrew Abbott, the Mooresville, North Carolina-based team made several changes to their truck hoping to gain speed in qualifying and eventually the race.

Laying down the 23rd quickest lap in time trials was a slight improvement, but Young noted to his team that the truck felt better.

When the green flag waved, Young quickly noted to his team that he may have made contact with the wall in Turn 2 – with a very tight race track in the opening laps.

With no visible damage, Young stayed on the race track.

By Lap 10, Young slipped to 25th where he stayed through the first caution of the night for the expiration of the caution clock.

The Midland, Texas native told his team that he was aero tight during the opening run. Abbott called his driver to pit road for tires, fuel and a massive adjustment to combat the tightness.

Good work on pit road sent Young to 23rd on the restart, but quickly after returning to green, the tightness returned falling the driver to 26th in the running order – but a climb to 25th during the second run of the night.

During the green flag stint, Young radioed his team that his No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco. Chevrolet was “really, really loose – like something broke.” Despite that feeling, the Texan would charge on through the second expiration of the caution clock, three laps in the arrears to the leaders.

Under the caution, Abbott once again took a big swing at chassis adjustments to try and thwart Young’s battle.

Restarting 25th, Young maintained his position on the race track, while telling his team that he liked the changes to the truck and wanted more of the same during the last caution.

That opportunity came for the third and final caution of the night for the third expiration of the caution clock.

During the yellow, Abbott’s crew bolted on four more tires, fuel and another chassis adjustment to help Young for his final stint.

Despite his best efforts on the restart, Young lost 25th in the closing laps to Jordan Anderson and took the checkered flag in 26th in his final NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race of the season.

Tyler Young Quote:

“By far we aren’t happy with our performance at Texas Motor Speedway, but we’ll keep digging.

“We won’t give up.

“From the time we unloaded, we just struggled to get the balance we needed to move forward or have an opportunity to really have an impact on this race.

“This is my final race of the season driving the No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco. Chevrolet, but we have a lot of great things happening for the final two races and we’re already focused on 2017.

“As a team, we’re going to have our good days and bad days, we just need to stay focused, keep everyone motivated and we’ll come back to Texas and this finish will be a distant memory.”

Young Motorsports PR