HAUBSTADT, Ind. — With two laps-to-go, Trent Young said, “I knew I had to go for it.”
Coming out turn four on lap 24, Young ripped the high side around turns three and four behind race-leader Lucas Lee and Austin Wayne-Self and decided to put his car between both.
As Young was splitting the two cars, Self slid up the track and made contact with the rear of Young’s car and spun on the frontstretch. Before the yellow flag was thrown, Young had nosed ahead of Lee at the start/finish line to take the lead for the upcoming restart.
Now, all Young had to do was survive a green-white-checkered finish. He did just that, getting a great jump on the restart and taking the checkered flag for his second DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals win in three days.
“I had the car to do it, I just hadn’t got the opportunity,” Young said. “I got stuck on the bottom every restart and just had to fall in line and the last one just worked out. Lucas knew the other car was pressuring him, so he wasn’t looking for me on the top, he was looking for him and I just used that to my advantage.”
For most of the race, Young stayed patient around the high side of the quarter-mile oval, swapping between fourth and fifth place until on a lap-21 restart, he made his way to third with his sights set on Self and Lee.
The next circuit around, Self tried a slider on Lee, but Lee crossed it over coming out of turn two and down the backstretch. The intense battle Lee and Self were having allowed Young to get closer as he got to the tail of Self out of turn four.
Once Young got close enough, he tried a slider on Self out of turn two, but Self crossed it over. Then coming out of turn four, Young got even with Self and took the runner-up spot from him at the start/finish line.
After taking the second spot on lap 24, Young jumped the cushion in turn one, allowing Self to get ahead of him on the bottom. Going down the backstretch, Young gained momentum on the outside before he made the winning move coming out of turn four.
“I just kept trying to bide my time,” Young said. “I knew I was pretty fast and they was getting really wild in the top three or four so I kind of just wanted to ride and see how it played out. I got stuck on the bottom on every restart and just had to fall in line.”
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 10Y-Trent Young[3]; 2. 12L-Lucas Lee[1]; 3. 95K-Levi Kissinger[5]; 4. 16C-John Clippinger[22]; 5. 50-Tyler Weiss[6]; 6. 55-Justin Jones[8]; 7. 67-Chris Moore[13]; 8. 35S-Zach Fair[9]; 9. 94-Austin Rettig[15]; 10. 54-Zachary Hawk[18]; 11. 69L-Josh Lemke[10]; 12. 1L-Mike Lentz[14]; 13. 91K-Cody Kibby[17]; 14. 3F-Rob Fuqua[19]; 15. 11-Brian Ashby[12]; 16. 23Z-Austin Wayne Self[7]; 17. 24-Jarod Deckard[21]; 18. 787-Cody Zobrist[16]; 19. 81C-Christopher Cole[4]; 20. 3G-Bryce Graber[20]; 21. 7-Mark Lamont[2]; 22. 14-Dalton Lane[11]