Youngren ready for new season

he 2005 Irwindale Speedway season starts next month, and Scott Youngren is ready for a fresh start.

“We’ve got all of our notes. We’ve got the chassis figured out,” Youngren said. “We’re ready to go out.”

In 2003 Youngren finished second in the Auto Club Late Model season standings. After the season he upgraded his 2002 Monte Carlo to a 2004 Monte Carlo, a move which was designed to increase his speed but which carried the risk of adjusting to a new car.

The 2004 season turned out to be a learning experience with the new chassis. Youngren’s first three races of 2004 produced 14th-place, 8th-place, and 11th-place finishes. A mechanical failure in the fourth race relegated Youngren to last among the 28 drivers May 8.

The day after that May 8 race Youngren and his crew tore down the car and set about the process of using the setup from his previous car. In the following race May 22, Youngren was running third until he was unable to pass the second-place car and was passed himself during the positioning efforts.

Youngren followed that fourth-place finish by finishing fifth, third, fourth, and fourth in his next four races. He followed that with ninth-place and eighth-place results but then won two of his next three races.

“We would have had three in a row, but a lapped car kind of got in our way,” Youngren noted.

In the first race of twin 50-lap main events, Youngren hit the lapped car and had to settle for a 17th-place result. Youngren won the second main event that night.

“We ended up with two wins under our belt,” Youngren remarked.

Youngren finished third in the race after his second win. He opted not to run the final race of the point season. “We really wanted to go to Bakersfield and race, so we decided to save the money,” he said of not competing in the final race.

Ironically, Youngren himself was not able to race at Bakersfield; the owner of Youngren Construction had been involved in a home makeover television show that week and gave the car to a more alert Tony Green. Green finished third in the Bakersfield open competition. “It worked out really well,” Youngren said.

Green, a former driver, joined Youngren’s crew during the 2004 season. Bret Anderson, Joe Murphy, and Rain “G-Dogg” Salinas also joined Youngren’s crew during mid-season. Crew chief T.C. Steingrube and spotter Ron Chubb were on Youngren’s crew for the entire 2004 season, Jeff Schrader of Race Car Factory provided some assistance, and J.R. Bourgeois was a part-time member of Youngren’s crew.

All of those crew members are expected to return for 2005. “This year I’ve got a good crew. I’m really excited to be working with them,” Youngren remarked.

Youngren was in 13th place in the 2004 point standings before his fifth-place finish May 22. He had moved up to fourth with one race left, but with no mathematical chance at the championship and little chance of finishing second or third, he opted to focus on the Bakersfield race. Missing the final race of the year cost him fourth place, as Andrew Myers overtook him in the standings.

“Can’t complain too much,” Youngren said. “We actually really didn’t do that bad having fifth overall.”

That fifth-place overall season includes the races both before and after Youngren and his crew figured out the chassis. “We found it where we were happy with it,” he remarked.

During the 11 races between Youngren’s first four races and the final race he missed, Youngren obtained 454 of his 544 total season points. Track champion Doug McComb earned 450 points during those 11 races, and no other driver earned more than 390 points.

For Youngren and his crew, the 2005 season began with testing in February. “All my guys are really pumped up,” he said. “We’re ready to go this year.”

If weather and other factors cooperate, the first Auto Club Late Models race of 2005 will be March 12.