Youth For Tomorrow 150 7/23/11

Joe Gibbs Youth For Tomorrow 150 is one of the biggest events scheduled for this season
and all of the weekly racers were excited about it so they could compete
against some of the best in the business, this year’s celebrity drivers
included Max Papis, Ron Hornaday, Sterling Marlin, Johnny Benson, Mike Skinner
and Andy Lally. There was plenty of special attractions as well to draw a big
crowd to the charity event which benefited the Joe Gibbs Youth For Tomorrow
organization. They had celebrity go-kart races, monster truck rides, motorcycle
stunt shows and lots of carnival type rides and attractions. There were a lot
of fans in attendance and they all had to endure the 106 degree
temperatures.

David getting it done in the celebrity Go-Kart race.                                                              Franklin Photography

Practice

For big events like this we always attend as many practice
sessions as possible to prepare and be ready to run against the best in the
business.

Fridays practice session had temperatures around 100 degrees
and track temperatures of 150 degrees. Conditions like this make it very
challenging to be fast. David and the team worked hard on several different
set-ups and by the time we made a mock qualifying run he was one of the fastest
cars there.

Saturdays practice was more of the same except the heat was
even worse, the team worked hard on getting the car to grip the track with
older tires so that the car would be good during the long runs in the race.
David was around eighth fastest out of the 28 cars on hand.

Qualifying

David was the tenth car out for qualifying and all of the
hard work by the crew paid off, he out qualified all of the celebrity drivers
and was fourth quickest over all. Even in a special event the track still does
an invert for the start which put David in the third starting spot.

The 150 Lap Main Event

Do to the excessive heat the track officials decided to run
the race in two 75 lap segments. So here we go with basically a twin race night
and has been documented before twins always make for some crazy things. On Top
Of Which you also need to save your car and tires for the late laps in the race
and that’s tough to do in a two segment race. Our Plan was to be Patient and try
to stay out of trouble early and race hard at the end.

On the start of the first segment things were a little dicey
all the way through the pack and it didn’t take long for things to get crazy,
as everyone in the front was racing tightly side by side there was a multi-car
pile up about mid-pack on lap 11. On the restart David was lined up in fourth.
Once again the racing was pretty aggressive and there was plenty of trading
paint from front to back, just a few laps after the restart David got bumped up
the banking and he lost a few spots. It wasn’t long after that that the car
that bumped David got in to another car, the two cars wrecked hard right in
front of David but he was able to miss the wreck and continue on. From this
point on David ran a steady race and as all of the craziness was happening
behind him he worked his way in to second place by the end of the first
segment.

After the fifteen minute break it was back to racing, with a
single file restart things sorted out quickly. David had made a deal with the
leader during the break that they would check out on the field and then settle
it out between themselves in the last twenty five laps. That’s exactly what
they did and for the last thirty or so laps they had an awesome race going,
then the caution came out with two laps to go setting up a green, white,
checkered finish. On the restart David put some pressure on him over the
remaining laps but ended up settling for second place. David had to do what we
call points race, the point leader had dropped out early and he needed to be
sure he finished to capitalize on that so he had to be cautious not to turn the
leader and get sent to the pack. It’s hard to race like that but when you are
racing for a championship you have to look at the big picture. It paid off for
David because he is now the point leader and has a twenty nine point lead which
will open the door for him to race harder in these circumstances.

Racing for the lead.                                                                                       Franklin Photography