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LATOUR AN IMPRESSIVE 6TH IN FIRST TRIP TO CARAWAY

ASHEBORO, N.C. – David Latour Jr. and his No. 89 late model stock-car team made their first trip to Caraway Speedway last weekend for the annual Mid-Atlantic Championship Late Model 250-lap feature at the .455-mile oval. Latour was impressive throughout the day, qualifying seventh and racing his way to a fine sixth-place finish in the 32-car field that featured many of the top late model racers in the South.

“It was our first time at Caraway,” Latour began, “and to race in the top 10 all day and come out with a sixth-place run was great for our team. We’ve got nothing to complain about; it was a good day of racing. The car was a little loose in and coming off but it looked like pretty much everyone was loose, especially coming off.” read more...

LATOUR HEADED TO MARTINSVILLE FOR BAILEY’S 300

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – David Latour Jr. and the Latour Motorsports No. 89 late model team will debut a brand-new Billy Hess-built chassis this weekend at Martinsville Speedway. The three-day Bailey’s 300 for NASCAR late model stock cars marks one of the most prestigious events of the season for short-track stock car racing, and Latour is hoping for good results in his second trip to the half-mile oval after an encouraging open test session at the track last Wednesday.

“We’ve been working on this car nonstop over the last few weeks and I think we’re ready to go,” David said. “We’ve changed motors and got everything sorted out. Now it’s time to see how things go. We’re hoping to time trial into the field and we’d be really happy with top-20 finish.” read more...

LATOUR ONLY A CAR-LENGTH SHORT FROM VICTORY IN 2ND-PLACE RUN AT HICKORY

NEWTON, N.C. – David Latour Jr. started fifth and raced to a fine second-place finish Saturday night in the 50-lap late model feature at Hickory Motor Speedway. The finish marked Latour’s third second-place result at Hickory this season, and his fifth top-three finish of the season at the .363-mile oval.

The night didn’t start as planned for the Advance, N.C., based Latour Motorsports team. Brake problems in practice forced the team to make quick changes before qualifying for the 50-lap main. read more...

LATOUR BACK ON PODIUM SATURDAY AT HICKORY

NEWTON, N.C. – After missing from Hickory Motor Speedway’s late model field for about a month, David Latour Jr. returned to the .363-mile oval Saturday for a special 100-lap feature for the Bojangles’ late models. Latour qualified third for the 100-lap grind and remained in that position for majority of the race on his way to a solid third-place podium finish.

Latour, 17, admits the caution flags didn’t fall his way throughout the second half of the extra-distance feature. read more...

LATOUR PLANS RETURN FRIDAY AT TRI-COUNTY, DIVERSE SCHEDULE FOR REMAINDER OF SEASON

ADVANCE, N.C. – David Latour Jr. has been missing in late model action at Hickory Motor Speedway over the past couple weeks due to a July 12 accident that badly damaged his No. 89 late model. After spending the past weeks repairing the car and converting it to a “big spring” suspension setup, the Latour team is ready to return to the track Friday at Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson, N.C. read more...

LATOUR CONTINUES TO ADVANCE IN HICKORY LATE MODEL POINTS

ADVANCE, N.C. – With recent finishes of third and sixth in Hickory Motor Speedway Late Model Stock features, David Latour Jr. has moved to fifth place in the division’s point standings heading into the second half of the 2008 race season.

“We’re getting there,” says Latour. “It’s been a season with a little bit of everything, but lately the consistency of the car has been improving and we’ve been getting pretty good finishes out of it. We’re still searching for the best setup, but I guess that never ends.” read more...

WRECK ENDS LATOUR’S 6TH-PLACE UARA RUN

NEWTON, N.C. – David Latour Jr. was in position for the best race of his young late model career Saturday night in the UARA-STARS Bad Boy Mowers 150 at Hickory Motor Speedway. While running sixth in the 28-car field, a Lap 30 accident ended Latour’s run when another car tagged him from behind on the exit to Turn 2 and sent the Latour Motorsports No. 89 into the outside wall.

“We had a real good car,” Latour said after Saturday’s race. “We came into the night wanting to qualify for the race and try to run top 15. We did everything we needed to do and put ourselves in good position. We just got hit from behind and that’s it. We’re disappointed but also encouraged because we showed we could run against the UARA competition at our home track.” read more...

LATOUR A SOLID THIRD SATURDAY AT HICKORY

NEWTON, N.C. – Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour Jr. hopes a third-place finish Saturday night in the Late Model Stock feature at Hickory Motor Speedway will set the stage for a solid second half of the season after an up-and-down start.

Latour, 17, qualified fourth in the 17-car field and ran in that position for majority of the 50-lap affair before making a late-race pass for third.read more...

LATOUR QUALIFIES FIRST AT HICKORY, FADES TO SEVENTH IN RACE

NEWTON, N.C. – Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour Jr. qualified on the pole for Saturday night’s 50-lap Late Model Stock feature at Hickory Motor Speedway. He ran in the top three for the first half of the race before fading to seventh in the closing laps.

“We just can’t put a complete night together lately,” Latour said after Saturday’s feature. “We’re fast off the trailer and fast in qualifying, and we’re even fast in the first part of the feature, but toward the end the car starts to go away. Tonight [Saturday] it got really tight in the center of the corner and they [competitors] just picked me off. We ran them hard on the outside, and ended up seventh.”.read more...

LATOUR’S UP-AND-DOWN SEASON CONTINUES SATURDAY AT HICKORY

NEWTON, N.C. -- Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour Jr. had a promising run go sour in Saturday night’s Bojangles’ Late Model 100-lap feature at Hickory Motor Speedway.

Latour qualified and started second in the 17-car field and ran in the top three throughout the first third of the race. As the 100-lap affair progressed, Latour’s car began to go away causing him to lose positions and eventually pit for adjustments.read more...

DAVID LATOUR STRONG SECOND IN HICKORY LATE MODELS

Hickory, NC – Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour, Jr. of Advance, NC edged closer to that elusive first victory in the Whelen All American Series Late Model division by finishing a strong second to winner Coleman Pressley at the Hickory Motor Speedway on Saturday.

Latour, 17, qualified second next to the eventual winner but got shuffled back to fourth at the outset of the 50-lap main. “We got hung up on the outside for a couple of laps and fell back some,” Latour said. “I just wanted to drive smart coming back up through and Coleman got away from us. Our team worked hard to get the car back after we got wrecked last week. It was way off in practice but we found the problem before qualifying and it was much better. It just got a little tight there at the end of the race.”read more...

LATOUR FOCUSED ON TWIN 50s THIS WEEK AT HICKORY

ADVANCE, N.C. – Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour Jr. is looking for a strong rebound this Saturday night at Hickory Motor Speedway.

Latour, 17, has undergone an up-and-down start to his 2008 late model season at Hickory, mixed with a second-place finish, a blown engine, and blazing-fast qualifying laps. Latour hopes this Saturday’s twin 50-lap late model event will break up the “rollercoaster” ride and set the groundwork for a consistent late-spring stretch at Hickory.read more...

DAVID LATOUR FINISHES A CAREER-BEST SECOND SATURDAY AT HICKORY

NEWTON, N.C. – Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour Jr. qualified fourth and finished a career-best second place Saturday night in the Late Model Stock 50-lap feature at Hickory Motor Speedway.

Latour, faced with adversity all week after blowing his engine at Hickory on April 5, utilized a borrowed engine from his engine-builder, Charlie Long, just so he could make Saturday’s race.
read more...

DAVID LATOUR JR. AIMING FOR SOLID FINISH AFTER PROMISING HICKORY OPENER

ADVANCE, N.C. – Team Full Throttle Driver Development racer David Latour Jr. is aiming for his first win this Saturday night in the NASCAR Late Model class at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway’s .363-mile semi-banked oval. The 17-year-old Long Island native was impressive in Hickory’s 50-lap opener March 29, driving through the field from 14th to third.

“We had a tough time in qualifying last week but we drove to third in the race,” Latour said. “We know we’re capable of running for wins now. We have a great team and good equipment, so we just need to take it one week at a time and do the best we can. The results will come; we’re running too well for them not to. read more..

FOR LONG ISLAND NATIVE DAVID LATOUR, NASCAR DREAM GETS CLOSER

(Advance, NC) – Nobody would blame David Latour, Jr. if he were just a little bit dizzy these days. After all, it was just over a year ago he was racing 600 Micro Sprints against some of the toughest competition in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey areas.

Within the past twelve months, he’s relocated to the Charlotte, NC area, switched surfaces from the dirt to a NASCAR Whelen Series pavement Late Model, joined a NASCAR Driver Development Program, and progressed from a pure rookie in the class to a consistent top five qualifier and finisher who finished fifth in points and was just awarded Rookie of the Year at one of the nation’s most historic NASCAR weekly ovals – the Hickory Motor Speedway. He finished 398th out of thousands of NASCAR Whelen Series competitors across the country in national points this season.

If that isn’t enough to suggest this soft-spoken young man may have some talent, here’s a little more…the 16-year old tested a NASCAR Busch East car at Hickory in Mid-October and turned some very respectable times, giving his driver coaches clear indication that his future could indeed be very bright.

“David definitely made a lot of progress from the halfway point to the end of the season,” said Team Full Throttle Founder and Driver Coach Tom Baker. “He had a lot to get used to in the beginning. He hadn’t raced pavement since Quarter-Midgets, and he’d never been in a stock car. It’s a completely different style of driving than the Micro Sprint, so when he came into our program not only did we have to adjust his mental approach from dirt back to pavement, we had to adjust his patience button up a lot and help him understand that sometimes if you slow your mind down you go faster. He came a long way in all of those areas through the second half of the season and it showed in the results.”

The first few green flags of the season were a real challenge for Latour, as he noted following the Hickory Motor Speedway awards banquet on Thanksgiving Weekend. “I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing out there at first,” he smiled and shook his head. “I would watch Andy Loden run the high line, and try to do that, and then watch someone like Kyle Grissom run the low line and try to do that. Billy Hess built our car and it’s a great car, but we didn’t really know how to set it up and I didn’t really know what it was supposed to feel like so I was giving the best feedback I could. Then people like Danny Johnson and Richard Jarzombeck started helping us with the setup and other drivers like Andy Loden and Kyle Moon were giving me tips on driving it and we started to get a little better.”

That’s where Team Full Throttle came into the picture and helped him with his mental game. “When we joined the program, Tom started working with my mind and helping me to see that I needed to develop a consistent line and be more patient and relaxed. He teaches a lot about leadership and attitude, and how to develop the right mental game for the type of racing you’re doing. He’s helped me a lot.”

It’s been a high-speed ascent up the ladder for David, from the days of running his Quarter-Midget around the parking lot of his school just to get seat time when he was waiting to turn five years old so he could start racing. The personable teenager laughs at that memory. “Oh wow, that was a long time ago! My Dad was racing Go-Karts and he got me the Quarter-Midget. It didn’t take me long to know I wanted to do more than run around in the parking lot at my school. We had some early success I remember. I really had fun in those days. We were running at the same time other drivers like Joey Lagano and Bobby Santos were. It was a great time in our lives.”

In 2004, the only Quarter-Midget race David ran was the Grands, and we won it in a 20-year old car! The memory brought yet another smile along with it. “That car was old but boy was it fast. The sad part was, the car owner died two weeks before that race, so it was an emotional win for us. I’ll never forget that.”

Not one to back down from a challenge, the next stop was the temperamental 600cc Micro Sprints, a handful to drive especially when the track’s bumpy. Though David didn’t remain in the class long enough to achieve great success, his time on the dirt helped tremendously with his car control skills. “I’m not afraid of a loose race car,” he says. “Everyone laughs at me because my best qualifying laps seem to be when I’m half sideways off turn four looking at the infield. That’s the dirt experience. But I know in the pavement Late Model the name of the game is being patient and smooth and not overdriving the car. That’s the bad part about having raced the Micro because on dirt you can be a lot more aggressive than you need to be on pavement. Once I realized that, we started running better at Hickory and things started falling into place.”

David’s 11-year old brother Dillon is also racing down south now, competing in the INEX Bandolero Series. “Dillon is going to develop into a strong racer just like David,” Baker said. “We’re bringing him along slowly, at his pace. He has run very well the last couple of times out in the Winter Heat Series at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, winning heat races and running up front in the features. We’re pleased to have both kids in the program for sure.”

The Latour family team will run for the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Track Championship at Hickory in 2008, and they will be doing some additional traveling to other tracks as well. “We want to get some experience racing different tracks,” David confirmed. “We went to Ace Speedway once last year and finished seventh, but we want to get to Motor Mile and Tri-County and do some of the bigger shows like Martinsville at the end of the season. We’re all looking forward to a fun year, and with people like Jeffrey Cornatzer Auto Body of Advance, NC and Team Full Throttle on board with us, we believe we have what it takes to win races and maybe a championship.”

SECOND TOP FIVE IN THREE RACES FOR DAVID LATOUR AT HICKORY

(Advance, NC) – 16 year old Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development racer David Latour, Jr. scored his second top five finish in three races (his fourth of the season) on Saturday night at Hickory Motor Speedway in the first of two 35-lap Bojangles Late Model Stock feature events, and appeared to be on his way to another top five run when a broken hood pin bracket forced him to make a green flag pit stop that left him with a ninth place run at the checkers.

Latour, who has turned many heads over the past several weeks with his steady improvement behind the wheel, was satisfied with the team’s night but wishing for better results. “We definitely had a good run in both races,” the youngster nodded. “The car was strong in the first race. The car just got tight toward the end and I couldn’t turn it in the center of the corner. I felt like we could have had second or third. In the second race, the car was good again but one of the hood pin brackets broke and the hood started coming loose so they black flagged us to tape it down. If we hadn’t lost that time in the pits I believe we’d have had a second top five run. With only one points race left we knew tonight was our chance to gain some ground, and it looks like we’ll wind up fifth.”

David will run the points finale’ at Hickory this Saturday along with the Pepsi Fall Brawl in October. “We will definitely run both of those, and we might also do one or two more of the big shows this fall. We’ll see how it goes. I really have to thank Jeffrey Cornatzer Auto Body of Advance, NC, my family, my crew, and Team Full Throttle for all the help and support. We’ve really started to turn things around the last few weeks and I’ve learned a lot. Leading with two to go last week before Chrissy got into me and still winding up third was definitely the highlight of our year so far. I know I still have a ways to go but it feels good to at least be able to run up near the front.”

David Latour, Jr. is a member of the Team Full Throttle NASCAR Driver Development Program under the representation of Driver Development Services, LLC of Charlotte, NC. For more information about David, visit his website at www.latourmotorsports.com. For more information about Team Full Throttle, call 704-281-7699 or go to www.goteamfullthrottle.com.