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  • ARCA drivers share post-race reactions after the Shore Lunch 200 at Madison

    ARCA drivers share post-race reactions after the Shore Lunch 200 at Madison

    The ARCA Menards Series continued their summer stretch Friday by visiting the short track of Madison International Speedway.

    Chandler Smith returned to the series after being away for a short while, due to ARCA’s age restriction limit rule. Smith is just 16-years-old and is only allowed to compete on short tracks which means he will have to wait a couple of years before he can race at tracks like Daytona, Talladega and Michigan.

    With Smith returning to the ARCA field and being a previous Madison winner, there was plenty of speculation as to whether he could recapture the magic from last years race. But, Smith did just that, leading three times for 166 laps. In last year’s race at Madison, he only led 102 of the scheduled 200 laps.

    The rising star has been making a name for himself as of late. He has even been mentioned as a future Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series star if he continues his winning ways. Smith is one of the few drivers that is taking the ARCA route to the NASCAR big leagues, race by race, series by series.

    The Talking Rock, Georgia native born in 2002 has had a dominating season so far in the ARCA Menards Series earning two wins; his first was at Toledo. He won twice last year as well, at Madison and Salem.

    Smith rarely crashes and almost has a perfect score in the ARCA Series with only one wreck that came at the first Salem race last year. Still, he finished 10th in that race. Since his first ARCA start at Nashville, Smith has never finished outside the top-10.

    You could possibly say that Smith is the next Kyle Busch or Jimmie Johnson, or maybe a Kevin Harvick. However, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves and let the young racer progress before being rushed into an Xfinity or Cup car.

    Other drivers like Michael Self, Sam Mayer, Travis Braden, Bret Holmes, Carson Hocevar, Christian Eckes and Ty Gibbs all had a decent outing at the paved half-mile track in Oregon, Wisconsin.

    Several drivers took to Twitter after the race and gave their thoughts on their performance, including Smith, who is competing in a Kyle Busch Motorsports truck for the first time ever at Iowa this weekend.

    Going 2 for 2! 1 down got more business though!!! https://t.co/NaAmAXcDxj— Chandler Smith (@CSmithDrive) June 15, 2019

    General Manager and Team Owner Billy Venturini even chimed in to speak about Smith’s success.

    Finally getting to twitter. Great night by my entire @VenturiniMotor team. All cars were good and contended. At end of the night @CSmithDrive closed the deal when he needed to and we #FlytheV. #TeamToyota . Congrats to him and my 20 team but great job across the board by all— Billy Venturini (@BillyVenturini) June 15, 2019

    Despite winning last week’s race at Michigan, Smith’s teammate, Self had to settle for a top-five finish with second place after leading 20 laps.

    Solid night at @MISRacing for our @SinclairOilCorp team last night! Took me way too long to figure that track out, but had a lot of fun once I did. We were awesome on long runs but struggled on restarts and couldn’t hang on at the end for the ?.— Michael Self (@michaelself) June 15, 2019

    Another future prospect who is also making a name for himself in the 2019 season is Sam Mayer. Mayer is a GMS Racing developmental driver who is getting all the track time he can this season by also competing in the K&N Pro Series. Mayer has four starts in ARCA this season with a best finish of second at Salem.

    Madison International Speedway is sort of a home racetrack for the Franklin, Wisconsin native. Franklin is just one hour and 25 minutes to the west of the racetrack. Mayer had high hopes for a win and was excited to be back in the ARCA Series this weekend at the track. Unfortunately, he will have to wait another year but he still had a strong showing of third in front of his hometown fans.

    Last nights race was intense. That is all.— Sam Mayer (@sam_mayer_) June 15, 2019

    Carson Hocevar, along with Smith and Mayer, is also making limited starts due to age restrictions. He returned in his usual No. 28 KBR Development machine. Hocevar was last seen at Toledo, where he finished sixth. The ARCA driver has three other starts with finishes of 17th at Pensacola, third after starting on the pole at Salem and fourth at Nashville.

    Hocevar qualified fourth and was seen up front at times, but was facing tight conditions throughout the race and was even caught a lap down at times. However, a lucky break came with a caution and he received the free pass on Lap 127. Still, Hocevar couldn’t quite do much with the car, even with the late race restart that came with ten to go. He earned a somewhat disappointing sixth place finish.

    Got stuck on the high side during the last restart and lost a few spots. @CarsonHocevar battled back from one lap down and is scored sixth at the checkered flag.#ARCA #ShoreLunch200— KBR Development (@KBRdevelopment) June 15, 2019

    Christian Eckes had a disappointing night finishing in the seventh position after qualifying on the outside pole. He was up front late in the going battling with his two other Venturini Motorsports teammates, Self and Smith. Unfortunately, the Middletown, New York native accidentally got turned around late on the frontstretch. Eckes never rebounded and ended up seventh. He looks forward heading to Gateway next weekend.

    Super strong @JBLaudio Camry tonight. Spun after contact while passing for the leading with 18 to go. My fault! Sucks but we will move on. Proud of my @VenturiniMotor team, we’re ready for Gateway ?— Christian Eckes (@christianeckes) June 15, 2019

    Like others, Ty Gibbs returned to action after a short hiatus and was strong from the get-go. Gibbs took his No. 18 Monster Energy machine and qualified it in the third position. After Smith led the first 150 laps, Gibbs finally became the first lead change of the night on Lap 151 and held on for the next 14. The rain came on Lap 156 while Gibbs was leading and he was hoping for a little bit of extra luck in hopes to secure his first ARCA win of the season.

    However, it wasn’t meant to be as the light shower quickly passed over the track and the race went back under caution. When coming down to pit road, Gibbs failed to obey the stop sign at the end of the pit road, was penalized, and sent to the back to serve his penalty.

    Despite the penalty, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was having a solid run up front before another caution took place for Hailie Deegan’s car. With a late race restart that came with five to go, Gibbs jumped too early and changed lanes before the restart and was penalized again. He had to serve a drive-through penalty with just three laps to go. This ultimately ruined his chances of winning and he wound up with a frustrating eighth-place finish after being dominant early on.

    Yesterday was rough. One of the fastest cars I’ve ever drove. We led a couple laps and had shots to win the race. Just got on the bad side of the last restart, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. We will be back at gateway next weekend, see you there! #teamtg pic.twitter.com/Vb0GkeqcPm— Ty Gibbs (@TyGibbs_) June 15, 2019

    Corey Heim had a frustrating night as well, finishing 10th, five laps down to the race winner, after starting seventh. He was involved in the first caution of the night that came out on Lap 111 as Mayer accidentally made contact with Heim and sent him into the entry of Turn 3. Afterward, handling issues would plague the No. 22 machine. It was disappointing after being dominant as of late, winning at Charlotte and Pocono. Heim couldn’t keep the results and momentum going due to the accident, and finished in 10th place.

    Last night was rough. We had a good car but couldn’t show for it. I need to qualify better if we’re going to get good finishes. Still learning every race.— Corey Heim (@CoreyHeim3) June 15, 2019

    The ARCA Menards Series will continue their championship run to Kansas in October at World Wide Technology Raceway on Saturday, June 22.

  • Chandler Smith dominates to earn ARCA win at Madison

    Chandler Smith dominates to earn ARCA win at Madison

    Future Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series prospect Chandler Smith completely dominated the Shore Lunch 200 at Madison International Speedway located in Oregon, Wisconsin. Smith started on the pole and never looked back, winning his second straight victory in the ARCA Menards Series.

    “Ah yeah, man,” Smith told MAVTV in his post-race interview. “I can’t thank these Venturini Motorsports guys enough, Craftsman, A2A Logistics. These guys behind me (pit crew) put on a heck of a job today. I had to put it all together there at the end of the race and it came to the final restart, guys were spinning tires and that’s why we’re sitting in victory lane right now. Hats off to all these guys, they needed this, we’re going to party hard tonight!”

    It wasn’t as easy as it looked for Smith and his No. 20 Venturini Motorsports team.

    The first caution of the night came out on Lap 112 when Sam Mayer and Corey Heim made contact with each other. Heim, unfortunately, got the worst of it as he went up into the entry of Turn 3, taking him out of contention for the win.

    Another incident arose on Lap 124 for Heim’s teammate, Joe Graf Jr. had a left front and right front tire go down courtesy of Mayer again, due to reports. Graf Jr. would end up bringing out the caution once more.

    Smith led all the way until Lap 151 when Ty Gibbs took the lead for the first lead change of the night. As Gibbs passed Smith, the sky opened up and a light shower passed over the track. ARCA officials red-flagged the race on Lap 162 for approximately 17 minutes.

    Before the red flag, Smith, who had completely dominated the first half of the race, pitted and fell back in the running order in a change of strategy. If the race had continued under green the other lead lap cars would have to come down pit road to make their pit stops and it would have put Smith out front again.

    When the race restarted the rest of the field, including Gibbs, Christian Eckes, Carson Hocevar, Michael Self, Hailie Deegan, Bret Holmes and Travis Braden all had to pit.

    Right before the restart, ARCA officials penalized the 18 of Gibbs, the 15 of Eckes, the 55 of Deegan and the 23 of Holmes for running the stop sign at the end of pit road. They would have to restart in the back of the pack to serve the penalty.

    After the restart, last week’s winner at Michigan, Self, took the lead from his teammate Smith on Lap 169.

    There were intense short track racing battles going on for the top spot as Self, Smith and Eckes, as well as Gibbs, were all trying to hang on to and keep their cars from wrecking. Unfortunately, Eckes got the short end and wound up spinning out on the frontstretch while battling for the lead with Self and brought out the caution once more on Lap 181.

    Another incident took place for Deegan whose motor expired with 10 laps to go. This would be a major turning in the point in the race, as Smith would regain the lead.

    The ARCA officials would fly the red flag again due to track clean up from the oil that was laid down by Deegan’s car and to make sure the race had a green flag finish.

    The final restart came with five laps to go with Smith on the front row. Before Smith would go on to take his second checkered flag of the year, Gibbs received a black flag for changing lanes on the restart and had to serve a drive-through penalty.

    Smith went on to win for the second consecutive time at Madison.

    “Yeah, we just over adjusted a little bit on our first initial pit stop when we came and got four tires,” Smith added in his post race interview with MAVTV. “So, we went in and we got two tires, and it went back to how we were, and that’s why we’re sitting back in victory lane.”

    While Smith would win for the second time this year, last week’s Michigan winner and his teammate Michael Self had to settle for a second place finish after leading a few laps.

    “It’s kind of how he’s (Chandler Smith) been this year,” Self said in his post-race interview with MAVTV in regards to the pass for the lead late. “You know what, Chandler is a good racer man, he’s really fast. I’m actually really excited to watch him go run that truck in Iowa tomorrow, that’s going to be really cool for him. Like, a little bit more respect maybe, blasting me into the corner. I tell guys all the time, I respect the guy who wins, I still am that guy sometimes.”

    “Today was going to be a horrible day for me, I thought. We were no good in practice, didn’t qualify great, fell outside the top-10 in the early stages of the race. Props to Shannon (Rursch, Crew Chief) and all these guys on the No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota. We were a really good long run car. I mean we probably had the best car here after 50 or 75 laps, but unfortunately we had that one long green flag stint and we didn’t get many after that. Too much tight racing there at the end. The reason I like racing big tracks is because we get single file, there’s no one around you, I’m kind of old and that’s kind of stressful. I like to be single file out there, do my own thing, not tight racing like this.”

    GMS Racing developmental driver and breakout star Sam Mayer rounded out the top three finishers with third place after starting sixth.

    “Early on, we were really really free, everywhere really,” Mayer said in his post race interview with MAVTV. “We came in, tightened it up and that seemed to help the car a little bit. We were just waiting patiently about mid-pack. Waiting for something like this to happen, where we had a late race caution with short ten laps to go, we were able to somehow fight in to the top three, which is pretty awesome! Everyone at Driver’s Edge Development Chevrolet, Chevrolet Accessories, GMS Racing especially, helping me out by giving me the best car possible and glad we could get a top three out of it.”

    Smith started on the pole and finished first, and led three times for 166 laps. This is Smith’s third ARCA win of his young career and Venturini Motorsports’ seventh win of the season as a team.

    The Shore Lunch 200 saw five cautions flags and two red flags (one for rain, the other for clean up from Hailie Deegan’s car).

    Official Results

    1. Chandler Smith
    2. Michael Self, 1.422 seconds
    3. Sam Mayer, 2.408 seconds
    4. Travis Braden, 2.66 seconds
    5. Bret Holmes, 2.726 seconds
    6. Carson Hocevar, 3.895 seconds
    7. Christian Eckes, 12.771 seconds
    8. Ty Gibbs, 16.313 seconds
    9. Joe Graf Jr, Two laps down
    10. Corey Heim, Five laps down
    11. Tommy Vigh Jr, Seven laps down
    12. Hailie Deegan, OUT
    13. Eric Caudell, 13 laps down
    14. Tim Richmond, 17 laps down
    15. Brad Smith, OUT
    16. Dick Karth, OUT
    17. Dick Doheny, OUT
    18. Dale Shearer, OUT

    Up Next: The ARCA Menards Series continues their weekly racing by heading south to St. Louis, Missouri next week for race No. 11 at the newly named World Wide Technology Raceway, formerly known as Gateway Motorsports Park.

  • ARCA Menards Series Preview- Madison

    ARCA Menards Series Preview- Madison

    While the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is taking the weekend off, the ARCA Menards Series will take center stage Friday night at Madison International Speedway, the short track located in Oregon, Wisconsin.

    It will mark the halfway point in the ARCA Series for the 2019 season, which has seen a slew of winners and repeat winners. They include Harriosn Burton winning at Daytona, Michael Self winning two races at Pensacola and Salem, Todd Gilliland in Talladega, Christian Eckes in Nashville, the upcoming star Chandler Smith, Ty Majeski winning at Charlotte and Pocono. Self finally got back to victory lane last week at Michigan in a last-lap pass on Majeski in the last corner of the race when Majeski ran out of gas off Turn 4. It was his third win this season.

    With his win last week, Self finally saw the end of some frustrating finishes. He’s looking forward to carry his momentum from last week to Madison on Friday night. However, despite having 28 starts in over a five-year span in the ARCA Series, Madison will be new to Self as he will be making his track debut this weekend.

    “Madison is going to be totally new for me,” says Self. “I’ve never made a lap there, so I’m relying on the video I’ve watched and information from my teammates and people around the VMS shop to prepare and try and be ready to hit the ground running for practice on Friday. The track definitely looks unique and challenging, and hopefully I can pick it up and figure out by Friday night.”

    So far this season, Self has earned three wins, six top fives and top-10 finishes, along with three poles. He currently leads the ARCA Menards Series standings over Bret Holmes by 15 points.

    Self’s teammate, Hailie Deegan, will be returning to the ARCA Series this week. Deegan has been in the headlines a lot this week after a last-lap effort to win the K&N Pro Series West race at Colorado this past weekend, which took her teammate Derek Kraus out for the win.

    Madison will also be new to the rising star power of Deegan.

    “I’m excited to get back in the ARCA car this weekend with Venturini Motorsports at Madison,” said the native of Temecula, California. “I feel confident in my team and my abilities going into the weekend for my next short track start. But my goals are realistic. ARCA is a new series and there’s still a lot to learn. Our first race at Toledo ended early after getting wrecked so I’m going back with similar goals – log laps, learn as much as I can and shoot for top-five finishes.”

    It will be her first ARCA start since Pocono a couple of weeks ago, where Deegan finished seventh after starting fourth. Her previous start was at Toledo last month where she was taken out and left with a disappointing last-place finish.

    Also making his ARCA return, but already having an impressive season with three top fives and four top-10 finishes, is the grandson of Joe Gibbs, Ty Gibbs.

    Gibbs has been making a lot of noise on the track this year and looks to continue to do that at Madison where he has no starts.

    “I’m so ready to get to Madison,” said Gibbs. “I’ve been really excited for Madison since I left Toledo. It’s just a real short track that takes a lot of tires. You’ll definitely have to conserve too so you can have enough brakes to be around at the end, but I’m ready to move on to Madison and hopefully get our first win of the season.”

    Despite having early season success and not being able to compete at all the racetracks due to the age limit, Gibbs is looking to start clicking off wins this weekend.

    “We’ve got a lot of second-place finishes this season which is good in some ways and bad in some ways,” said Gibbs. “I want to win so bad but finishing second has proven that we have the equipment to run up front and compete for wins, we just need all the pieces to fall in to place and work perfectly to get to victory lane.”

    Gibbs has tons of short track experience racing the short tracks across the country in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour. So far this season in the ARCA Series, however, the grandson of Joe Gibbs has a pretty stellar record of finishing second in his first ARCA start at Pensacola, sixth at Salem and a pair of second place finishes at Nashville and Toledo, the last time Gibbs competed in an ARCA car.

    Even though the drivers mentioned above have no ARCA starts at the racetrack located in Wisconsin, Venturini Motorsports driver Christian Eckes has two starts there with a best finish of fifth coming two years ago in 2017. His other finish the year prior in 2016, resulted in a DNF due to a drive train issue and saw him finish 14th in his first track start.

    Speaking of challenges, the Middletown, New York driver has faced challenges this season after missing a race due to sickness earlier this season.

    “It’s been a rough couple of months but we’re looking to turn it around this weekend at Madison,” said the Toyota Racing Development driver. “It’s a track that I have loved in the past but haven’t been to in two years, so I’m really looking to get back there. The Venturini organization has shown a ton of success over the past decade at this place and I’m ready to keep it going. Our JBL Audio team has brought awesome race cars so far this year and we’re ready to go make it happen.”

    While other drivers will be making their first starts at Madison this weekends, one driver, Sam Mayer, is eager to get back on track in his home state. Mayer, who is apart of the GMS Racing development program, has been competing across several different racing series. In 2019, the Wisconsin native has finishes of 21st at Pensacola, second at Salem and a fifth at Toledo.

    Mayer is excited to be racing at his home track Friday night at Madison.

    “Getting the chance to race at home is really cool,” Mayer said. “Having all my family and friends come out to watch and support me is going to be really exciting and I hope we can pull out a win for all of them.”

    Sitting second in the ARCA point standings is Bret Holmes who drives the family-owned team No. 23. Holmes has amassed three top fives and seven top-10 finishes. He’ll look forward to carrying his season momentum through to Friday night.

    Madison is a tough track,” he said. “It’s almost like a banked Martinsville Speedway. The corners are really tight, you use a lot of brakes and the front tires wear quickly. I think that’s the difference maker there. You don’t want to get your front tires too hot. On long green-flag runs, that’s where you’ll beat everyone. I’m excited to get back on a short track after these few weeks at speedways. I think our intermediate track program is a little better than our short track, but we’re working on some things at the shop that we’re going to test out to see how they work. We’ve had solid top-five runs here lately, and we’re looking to continue that in Madison this week.”

    Currently, there are 18 drivers entered on the preliminary entry list for this week’s race. They include Joe Graf Jr., Tim Richmond, Eric Caudell, Dale Shearer, Brad Smith, Carson Hocevar, Travis Braden, Corey Heim, Chandler Smith, Dick Karth, Tommy Vigh Jr. and Dick Doheny, who will round out the remaining participants for the race this weekend.

    It will be an all-day show for the ARCA Menards Series drivers. The only practice session begins at 2:15 p.m. ET. The General Tire Pole qualifying is slated for 6 p.m. ET There will be two laps for every driver.

    The Shore Lunch 200 is scheduled to get underway shortly after 9 p.m. CT. The event will see 200 laps that will make up the 100-mile race distance. The race can be seen on MAVTV.