Starr’s Toyota was solid in Friday’s practice running lap times in the top half of thirty-six-truck field. Unfortunately, after a brief rain shower before Saturday’s events washed some of the rubber off the track, Starr’s truck was too tight in qualifying, posting a lap of 20.61 seconds around the .528-mile paper clip shaped track.
David began to work the No. 81 Zachry Toyota towards the front of the field after the green flag flew Saturday afternoon and once again early in the race he was caught in a chain-reaction incident causing damage to the right front of his Toyota Tundra. The team would use the early cautions to work on the damage and were able to keep David only one lap down to the leaders. It looked to only be a matter of time for Starr to get back on the lead-lap to compete for a solid finish.
During one of the early cautions in the 250-lap race, Crew Chief Jason Miller called Starr back to the pits to change four tires add some additional material to the damaged nose of the truck. As Starr approached the pit box, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor. Unable to stop, the truck rolled into through the pit-box striking the jackman. Fearing a potential dangerous brake issue, Miller called Starr back behind the wall to check the brakes, loosing several additional laps to the leaders.
Racing through a total of thirteen cautions the balance of the race, Starr was unable to catch any lucky-dog passes to make up the lost laps and finished a disappointing 26th behind Johnny Sauter, the fourth different winner in four NCWTS events so far in 2011.
“Even though our truck as not as fast as we wanted it to be, if we would have had some luck on our side early on I still believe we could have finished in the top-ten,” David continued. “It was a tough day for us. It was certainly not what we needed or what we wanted, we just need a little luck on our side.”
“It was just not a good weekend all around, as hard as you try to plan, sometimes races like this just happen,” said SS Green Light Racing general manager Bobby Dotter. “Our jackman is a little bruised and sore, but he’s going to be alright. I don’t like to see anyone get hurt.”
“We need to get this bad luck turned around and we’ll be fine, the guys on this SS Green Light team don’t give up.”
The finish dropped Starr three places in the NCWTS drivers point standings to sixteenth and the No. 81 fell to nineteenth in the owner’s standings after four of twenty-five races in the 2011 season.
The NCWTS teams have several weeks off before the Nashville 200 at Nashville Superspeedway on April 22nd.
- SS Green Light Racing Press Release
