Hoping for a hometown advantage this week at Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) veteran Tyler Young hopes to earn his second top-10 finish of the season in Friday night’s Rattlesnake 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.
And while every race is important for the Young’s Motorsports driver of the No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco Chevrolet Silverado, you’ll have to excuse the Midland, Texas native if he’s been more focused than normal heading into the seventh race of the season.
On the heels of a respectable 19th place finish nearly three weeks ago at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Young is ready to get back in the saddle and reboot his season in front of the hometown crowd.
“I can’t wait to get back to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend,” said Young. “It’s always nice to go back home where you know there’s a lot of pressure, but also a lot of support. After a strong start to the season we haven’t had the finishes we were looking for in the past couple of races, so a good finish Friday night would be a great way to put our season back on the right path.”
Through the first six races, Young has maneuvered four top-15s and five top-20 finishes including a career-best sixth to open the season at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in February. While, a 19th place finish at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, the most recent race on the tour wasn’t what the Young’s Motorsports team had hoped, Young notes that his team has worked around the clock to ensure his team is competitive this weekend.
“We missed the setup a little bit at Charlotte,” Young added. “We tried some strategy at the end and it helped us with our finish, but we realized we could not come to Texas this week and struggle like we did at Charlotte. What I love about my Young’s Motorsports team is theirs no complaints, no finger-pointing, everyone’s focused on doing what they can to get better and that’s why we never give up.”
Sharing the 1.5-mile speedway with the Verizon IndyCar Series this weekend, Young said that track time will be crucial during practice on Thursday – but his team led by crew chief Andrew Abbott have to be conservative about their setup, especially since most of the track time will be held during the daylight compared to the 167-lap ran under the lights.
“I think we have a good base of where we want to be,” added Young. “We had a really competitive truck at Kansas Speedway last month and I think if we can work off of that setup and keep adjusting our No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco Chevrolet Silverado throughout the night – we should not only be competitive – but have a shot to contend for another top-10 finish.
“I love Texas, but it’s a beast of a mile and a half. It’s not the typical intermediate track like a place like Kansas, Chicagoland or Kentucky Speedway. It has some similar characteristics, but like everything’s bigger in Texas – the track is its own colossus.”
Entering Friday night’s race 11th in series points, 25-year-old Young has six starts at Texas Motor Speedway with a best finish of 14th twice, most recently in this same event last May.
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