Before the best Late Model drivers on the East Coast take to the track next weekend for the prestigious Myrtle Beach 400, competitors from different avenues of racing will take part in the race’s preliminary event in the Myrtle Beach 250. Super Trucks, Mini Stocks, and Challengers are among the divisions that take part in the race, which concludes with a 75-Lap Limited Late Model feature.
Gary Young Jr. will be one of a handful of drivers entered in the Limited Late Model field, and he will be looking to cap off a stellar 2018 season with a victory at Myrtle Beach Speedway. Although Young has experience in a variety of different vehicles and tracks, he has never raced at Myrtle Beach at any point during his career, but he said that other drivers and crew members have told him to take care of one thing in particular in order to contend for the win.
“Tires, tires, tires,” Young said. “We’re going to fall to the back and let the leader nearly lap us, but you have to rely on the spotter.”
Young got his racing career started in 2000 a few years after his dad elected to retire from racing, but Young began to work on his father’s car in the garage without his father’s knowledge. Young eventually told his father what he was doing with his car, and successfully convinced him to return to the track as the driver of his old car, and was rewarded for his hard work by being competitive at nearly every single race that he entered.
Young and his father have had a strong passion for the Modified division throughout their careers, but Young actively sought to obtain more time behind the wheel, which eventually created opportunities for him to compete in several different series, including the 602 Modified Tour and the Southern Modified Race Tour. In recent years, Young has also accumulated laps in Limited Late Models, but he stated that its differences from the Modified car creates its fair share of challenges.
“The hardest thing to overcome from jumping from one car to the next is that the Modifieds have a rack and pinion steering with only 2,650 lbs, while the Late Model has a steering box,” Young said. “It takes two completely different driving styles.”
Young currently finds himself in the middle of the best season of his career, as he won the Modified championship at Ace Speedway by displaying consistency throughout the season with multiple wins, poles and Top 5’s. Young ended his season by winning the Limited Late Model portion of the Rodney Cook Classic and backed that strong performance up by utilizing a late-race restart to win the 2nd annual Donnie Carver Memorial at Orange County Speedway.
The monumental victories at Ace and Orange County have given Young confidence heading into this weekend’s Myrtle Beach 250, but Young knows that in order for him to take the checkered flag first, he will have to fight off one of the most talented Limited Late Model fields he has ever competed against. Regardless of what happens on Saturday night, Young has been proud of the progress he has made in Modifieds and Late Models this year, but he feels that a win in the Myrtle Beach 250 would serve as a huge boost for his program.
“We’re just trying to win three in a row,” Young said. “We want to prove that we belong with or without fenders.”
Saturday’s activities for the 2018 Myrtle Beach 250 will include a 75-Lap feature for the Super Trucks and a 50-Lap feature for the Mini Stocks before Young and the Limited Late Model drivers battle it out at the end of the night. The green flag for the first of these features is expected to drop at approximately 3:30 p.m.
