David Starr
No. 81 Randy Moss Motorsports Toyota Tundra
Gateway International Raceway – CampingWorld.com 200
July 17, 2010
David Starr and the No. 81 Randy Moss Motorsports team worked tirelessly to improve the handling of his Toyota Tundra throughout the scorching weekend at Gateway International Raceway. With temperatures well into the 90’s during practice and qualifying the team worked to predict what track conditions would be during the Friday night race and adjusted the No. 81 Randy Moss Motorsports Toyota Tundra accordingly.
In a bizarre turn of events, a transformer near the 1.25-mile track caught on fire and left competitors and fans in a holding pattern for more than two hours as power crews tried to restore electricity to the facility. With the track still in the dark, NASCAR made the decision to postpone the race until Saturday afternoon.
Starr qualified his Toyota Tundra in the 25th position but brushed the wall coming off turn four requiring the Randy Moss Motorsports team to make repairs to their No. 81 Toyota Tundra. Since the repairs were outside NASCAR’s typical legal adjustments, Starr was required to drop to the back of the field for the start of the 160-lap event.
Immediately after the green flag dropped, Starr began picking up positions around Gateway International Raceway. After just one lap he moved into the 27th position and was ranked inside the top-20 by the lap 14 caution period. Throughout the first half of the event, Starr struggled with his Toyota Tundra being too tight from the center off especially through turns three and four. However, the crew worked diligently through every stop to make adjustments to the No. 81 Toyota Tundra and allowed Starr to focus on simply hitting his marks during the second half of the 200-mile event.
After struggling through turns one and two, Starr asked the crew to loosen his Toyota Tundra for the final stop. The crew made a slight air pressure adjustment, but it made Starr’s Toyota Tundra a bit too free for the final laps. With less than 40 laps remaining in the 160-lap event, Starr raced to a 13th-place finish. Starr is ranked ninth in the driver championship standings and sits just 66 points outside the fifth position.
“We gave it all we had today,” said David Starr following the CampingWorld.com 200. “Doug Wolcott and the Randy Moss Motorsports team made our Toyota Tundra better with every pit stop. We’re all a little wore out today—it was very warm. This is probably the hottest that I’ve been in a race truck in a long time. Everybody did a great job to come home 13th in these conditions.”
The next stop on the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series schedule is O’Reilly Raceway Park on Friday, July 23rd. The AAA Insurance 200 will be broadcast on SPEED Channel, SIRIUS NASCAR Radio and MRN Radio beginning at 7:30 p.m. EST. Qualifying for the race will be televised on SPEED Channel Friday evening at 5:00 p.m. EST. Visit www.twitter.com/rmmracing or www.facebook.com/randymossmotorsports for news and updates.
