Youngren fifth for season at Irwindale

Scott Youngren missed three Auto Club Late races at Irwindale Speedway this year but still finished fifth in the standings.

“We weren’t happy with it, but we missed three races,” Youngren said. “Irwindale was good this year.”

Youngren began the season with a third-place finish March 12 and was in second place in the point standings prior to an accident which occurred early in the season. “When we got knocked out at that time it pretty much put us out of the championship,” Youngren remarked.

Youngren finished second in the 2003 standings, so only a track championship can give him a better season than his previous top finish. Youngren opted to race at other tracks rather than run a full Irwindale schedule. “The last two years we’ve blown the end of the season off because we were out of the championship,” he said.

That allowed him to run a handful of races at Bakersfield’s Mesa Marin track, which saw its final year in 2005. He had three regular-season top ten finishes at Mesa Marin. He also ran a 40-lap race at Las Vegas and finished third. “We’ve had a good year,” he noted.

Youngren ran one additional race at Irwindale to ensure a top-five finish in the season standings. “Not too many people can say they’ve finished top five at Irwindale every year they’ve been there,” Youngren said.

Youngren finished fifth in the Auto Club Late standings as a rookie in 2002 and followed his second-place 2003 finish with a fifth-place finish in the 2004 standings.

Showtime Hobbies in Bakersfield sponsored Youngren for the Mesa Marin races. Youngren was also sponsored by Brian Burch Construction, Costello’s Auto Repair, MR Tile and Marble, Nox High-Energy Drink, On-Ice Graphics, Jim Pyre Plastering, Racecar Factory, Rancho Racing Transmissions, Ron’s Rear Ends, Paul Russell Trucking, Shower Pan Man, The Sign Station, Stone Truss Company, West Coast Truck and Auto, and Youngren Construction. Youngren’s pit crew included Bret Anderson, Ron Chubb, Tony Green, Erika Murphy, Joe Murphy, Rain “G-Dogg” Salinas, and T.C. Steingrube.

Youngren is planning to buy a new car for 2006, and he will be running part of the 2006 season at Irwindale. “We’ll be back there next year,” he remarked.

Youngren does not plan to run the full season at Irwindale but will likely run between 10 and 12 races at that track. “We’re going to slow down a little bit,” he said.

He plans to return to Las Vegas for some of that speedway’s 2006 races. “We’re definitely going to do some more Vegas trips next year,” he remarked.

Speedway 99 in Stockton will close after the 2006 season, and Youngren also plans to race at that track next year.

Youngren said that he would miss the first two races of each track so that he won’t get caught up in chases for points championships.