Utilizing a caution eight laps from the finish of Friday night’s American Ethanol e15 225 at Chicagoland Speedway, Tyler Young used fresh tires and an all or nothing approach to finish 16th in NASCAR overtime ending the regular season for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
On the heels of a top-10 finish at Michigan International Speedway last month, Young and his Andrew Abbott team entered their 12th race of the season with momentum on their side. Making gains from practice on Thursday, the team entered qualifying on Friday afternoon with an optimistic approach.
During knockout qualifying, Young hustled his No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco Chevrolet Silverado to the 19th quickest lap overall, his fastest time of the weekend.
With a better handling truck, Young set sights for his third top-10 finish of the season in his fourth start at the 1.5-mile speedway.
Maintaining his starting positon at the start, an early caution at Lap 3 prompted Abbott to bring his driver to pit road for fuel and 1 round up on the track bar adjustment to combat changing track conditions.
On the restart, the Midland, Texas native was able to quickly climb from 29th and found himself chasing fellow competitor Austin Wayne Self for 22nd with a tight race truck. Under the green flag run, Young lost a lap to leader Daniel Suarez but found himself in a torrid battle with Self for the free pass. The caution flew a few laps later with Self edging Young for a spot back on the lead lap.
Under the caution, Young pitted for tires, fuel and another set of adjustments. A solid pit stop by the Young’s Motorsports crew lined the Texan inside the top-25 for the restart.
With 100 laps remaining, Young found himself chasing Matt Tifft for the free pass. A caution would waive a short time later with Young still trapped a lap down – but the only truck one lap down.
When Josh Berry spun with 50 laps to go, Young finally found himself the beneficiary and circled the 1.5-mile speedway to get back on the lead lap where the team would keep their driver on the track even though Young was now fighting an extremely loose race truck.
While a gamble, the team’s patience paid off with a yellow flag inside the final 10 laps allowing Abbott to bring his veteran driver to pit road for his final set of tires, fuel and a chassis adjustment for the run to the finish.
Quickly making work of trucks on older tires, Young’s momentum was stalled when John Wes Townley crashed with six laps remaining and 18th in the rundown.
In NASCAR overtime, Young was able to pass two trucks and fight Ryan Truex for a top-15 spot, but when the caution flew as the leaders came to the checkered flag – Truex was given the spot as the field was frozen leaving Young with a solid 16th place finish under the Friday night lights.
Tyler Young Quote:
“We battled the handling of our No. 02 Young’s Building Systems / Randco Chevrolet Silverado throughout the weekend but we never gave up. It was the last race of the season and you could really feel the intensity out there on the track.
“I got door slammed a couple times and there were a couple occasions where I thought we had a tire going down, but I stayed in the gas and it all worked out. We just ran out of time at the end of the race, I really feel like we could have gotten inside the top-12 on the newer tires, just ran out of laps.
“This was another good race for us and we’ll take the finish in stride and get ready for the next one. I’m really proud of this team for their hard work and dedication.”
Young Motorsports PR
