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  • Bobby Gerhart wins Eighth ARCA Daytona Race in Last Lap Mayhem

    Bobby Gerhart wins Eighth ARCA Daytona Race in Last Lap Mayhem

    [media-credit name=”arcaracing.com” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]For the eighth time in his career, Bobby Gerhart won the Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 at Daytona International Speedway.

    Gerhart came home with the victory after coming from fifth to first off of corner four when both Brandon McReynolds and Chris Windom ran out of fuel.

    “Unreal,” Gerhart said. “That last lap was a dream. I always learned to take what was infront of me. I just went high and all it takes is for the leader to mess up.”

    Gerhart had to start at the back after failing post-qualifying inspection when he had qualified on the pole.

    The race ran clean till seven laps to go when James Hylton spun off the bottom, collecting Sloan Henderson and Rick Clifton. Some drivers pitted while others stayed out.

    The race restarted with five to go, before a last caution with three to go. The caution came out after Nelson Canache spun Chris Buescher in the tri-oval. Once again, some drivers pitted while others stayed out.

    The green would come out for a green-white-checkered, which immediately drivers began running out of gas, including a whole group coming to the checkereds.

    Unofficially, Drew Charlston finished second in his first ARCA start

    “That was awesome,” Charlston said. “I feel like I won the race.”

  • ARCA: Bobby Gerhart wins Seventh Daytona race with Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200

    ARCA: Bobby Gerhart wins Seventh Daytona race with Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200

    [media-credit name=”ARCA Racing Network” align=”alignleft” width=”256″][/media-credit]Old pavement, new pavement, it doesn’t matter to Bobby Gerhart as he still continued his Daytona dominance with his seventh Daytona win.

    “We didn’t have a good car – we had a great car,” Gerhart said. “That was awesome…..The kid (Chris Buescher) did a tremendous job. I was getting pounched around a lot there.”

    Playing the role of Gerhart’s wing man and pushing him to victory was 18-year old rookie Chris Buescher, who stuck with Gerhart the whole race.

    “That was pretty cool with coming to Daytona for the first time,” he said. “Congratulations to Bobby Gerhart – he is the best here. He learned a lot here.”

    Bobby Gerhart and Chris Buescher pitted early in the race under the first caution and then stayed out under the cautions that followed to take the top two spots with 30 laps to go.

    “We’re getting exceptional milage again,” Gerhart’s crew chief Billy Gerhart said. “We went to Talladega three weeks ago and we knew when we came here, it’d be tough to pass. So lets work on the mileage…….We come here to win. I’d rather be leading and run out rather than run second.”

    Rookie Matt Merrell finished third while Camping World Truck Series veteran Ricky Carmichael finished fourth. NASCAR All-Star Showdown winner Jason Bowles completed the top five in fifth.

    Rounding out the top 10 was Joey Licata, Benny Gordon, Chad McCumbee, Grant Enfinger and Frank Kimmel.

    Pole sitter Ty Dillon finished 11th after being involved in an accident earlier in the race.

    On lap 63, the big one happened when Hal Martin blew a tire, causing a wreck that involved Steve Arpin, Milka Duno, Kyle Fowler, Steve Blackburn, Bryan Silas and Maryeve Dufault.

    “The only thing I saw was smoke and I saw bouncing cars all over the place,” Maryeve said afterwards. “I thought the safest place would be to go down as low as possible, but we still got caught up.”

    Other wrecks that happened included Ed Pompa with a tire blowing out on lap 56 and Chad Hackenbracht flipping on lap 45.

    “I’m doing pretty fine. going through three and four, all i know is we had a good three-four car draft going,” Hackenbracht said. “I heard something clinking, went to the outside of the 30 car and it wrecked.”

    The next ARCA race of the season will be on April 15th at Talladega Superspeedway and will be broadcast live on SPEED.

    To see more articles by Ashley McCubbin and live updates from the weekend, check out http://newsfromthepits.blogspot.com/

  • Andy Belmont Racing Reflects on ARCA Test at Talladega Superspeedway

    Following the Daytona test, four teams proceeded to go to Talladega Superspeedway to lay down some extra laps as they continue to prepare for the ARCA season opener.

    One of the teams was Andy Belmont Racing with drivers Chad McCumbee and Robb Brent.

    “We had a pretty darn productive day,” team owner Andy Belmont told the ARCA Racing Network. “We went down with a game plan with lots to try, and we came away with some really solid info. It think it’s more productive to go to Talladega to test because there’s too many cars at the Daytona test, so track time is limited. With just four teams here yesterday, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We really accomplished a lot. Robb Brent tested a second car for us – it was the car that (Tom) Hessert got the pole with a couple years ago here. We completely rebuilt it, got the bugs out of it, so if we had to unload it, we’d have a hotrod.”

    Chad McCumbee, who has experience in both the ARCA Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, said the test proved beneficial.

    “It was a very productive day for the ModSpace Ford,” McCumbee said. “Also able to shake down the back-up car, so we’re pretty confident going to Daytona. We actually found some problems on our primary car that could have been detrimental had we not found them prior to Daytona.

    “Being that both tracks (Daytona and Talladega) are so smooth now, I think you can pretty much carry over all the information we got from the Talladega test, and take right to Daytona. The tracks are so similar so everything we learned, for the most part, is going to translate.”

    Belmont’s son Andrew was suppose to pilot the back-up car, however he recently had his appendix out. Belmont then made the call to put Brent behind the wheel of the car via his past experience in ARCA. 

    “I talked with Andy Wednesday night,” Brent said. “He offered up the chance to test his stuff; he’s always got great restrictor plate stuff, so I jumped at the chance. Before the call was done, I told him I’d be on the next flight. Got to the track about 9:30, 10 in the morning and tested all day. We worked some of the bugs out of his back-up car, had some fun; it was well worth it. Just a fun day all around.”

    Brent is hoping to pull together his plans for the 2011 season.

    “I’ve been constantly working on deals,” Brent said. “I’ve been contacted by a ton of teams – just need that sponsor. I’ll be in a car sometime, not fulltime, but I’ll be in a car somewhere.”

    Andy Belmont Racing knew the test would be crucial as beating six-time Daytona winner Bobby Gerhart, was also at the test, is never easy.

    “Our primary car was really solid with Chad (McCumbee); but Gerhart’s still the man to beat, no doubt about it,” Belmont said. “But I also think this kid McCumbee’s gunna give him all he can stand – we’ll see. But when it comes to Daytona, Gerhart’s always the man to beat. His focus has been on these two races (Daytona and Talladega) over the last 10 years. He spends most of his budget on these two races. You have to respect Gerhart. I do. We all do. He was really sporty yesterday.”

  • ARCA: Bobby Gerhart, Hessert, Corr and McCumbee to test at Talladega

    After the three-day open test at Daytona earlier this month, ARCA Series drivers Bobby Gerhart, Tom Hessert, Sean Corr and Chad McCumbee are heading to Talladega Superspeedway to continue to prepare for the Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 at Daytona on Saturday February 12th.

    Gerhart, a Lebanon, Pennsylvania native, has won the Daytona race six times so he knows the type of preparation that goes into winning it. This is something that he has done each year for awhile now with brother and crew chief Bill Gerhart.

    “We’re taking just one car to the test,” Bill Gerhart told the ARCA Racing Network. “It’s the car we’re going to race at Daytona. It’s actually last year’s Daytona spare. We’ve practiced and tested the car, but we’ve never raced it. But when we took it back for the test (at Daytona) it out-performed last year’s winner (car). We built the car new; we’ve just never raced it. Sometimes it happens that way. With the new paving, the track just came to the car. We finally have most of the bugs out of it. We finally got it to go.”

    Looking at the test speeds from Daytona, a lot of people have not paid any attention to Gerhart via being mid-pack, though that doesn’t work the No. 5 team.

    “We’re not concerned about that at all,” Bill Gerhart said. “You can take all that speed from the test and throw it out the window. Let me put it to this way. Last year, it was the same thing. We came out of the test 28th fastest. We went back for the race and qualified eighth with the same speed we tested at. What’s that tell you?”

    As a result, the car they are taking to the test and in essense running Daytona is the car that they felt comfortable with during the test.

    “From what we saw in the drafting session, Bobby was able to pass with ease,” Bill Gerhart said. “We were stunned. Out leading the pack, nobody could pass him. I think this year’s race pace could be a half-second faster. Four car packs in the test were running last year’s race pace. Imagine what it will be this year with 20 in a pack.”

    For Gerhart Racing, they have decided to focus on comfort and the race rather than speed since from the test, it was clear the Toyotas had the best single car speed runs, led by the Toyotas from Venturini Motorsports.

    “Do I think we’ll contend for the pole? I don’t think so, not against the Toyotas; but can we contend for the win? Absolutely,” Bill Gerhart said. “If we’re still happy with the way our car is handling in tomorrow’s test we may load up after 10 laps and head for home. We actually made some rear suspension adjustments after the Daytona test, so we think we’re going to be even better. But if our car is going to perform like we think it’s going to, we won’t need a lot of laps tomorrow. Just head for home, do the final paint work, decal it, and we’ll be ready to go.

    “Last year’s winning car was designed for the bumps and a slick track. But this year, the game has completely changed, so we had to make some changes. Our Lucas Oil-Slick Mist Chevrolet is going to be very good. It’s going to be a hell of a race; I can promise you that.”

    In 15 starts at Daytona, the series veteran has six wins, eight top fives, 12 top 10s and an average finish of 6.1 while leading 401 laps out of the 1141 laps he has run. Gerhart has only one other ARCA Series win which came at Daytona’s sister track, Talladega.