Photo – AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards heads to the Chicagoland Speedway for the 14th straight year this weekend.
ARCA is coming off two short races at Elko Speedway and Winchester Speedway. Grant Enfinger won Elko in dominating fashion and Brandon Jones used a last-lap pass on Mason Mitchell to score the Winchester victory.
Mitchell’s finish at Winchester was his fourth runner-up in the last six races. He ran last year’s race at Chicagoland, but it was a start-and-park effort for Kimmel Racing.
His No. 98 car is a Ford, the same manufacturer that won last year’s race with Corey LaJoie and the Roulo Brothers. Ryan Blaney ran with Cunningham Motorsports and dominated the race before running out of fuel with less than ten laps to go.
Win-Tron Racing driver Frank Kimmel is the only drive to compete in all 13 ARCA races at Chicagoland. He has one win there in 2003.
In the 13 races, there have been 13 different winners with Chevrolet and Dodge tied for the most wins with four.
Chicagoland is a home game for a few teams, especially Venturini Motorsports. The team has two wins at the 1.5 mile track with Scott Lagasse, Jr. in 2008 and Kevin Swindell in 2012. Swindell is also the last driver to lead every lap in an ARCA race.
Justin Boston came up short of the victory in last year’s race when the fuel tank ran dry coming to the white flag.
On the subject of fuel mileage, Josh Williams nearly stole the show last year by conserving enough fuel and being passed by LaJoie late and settled for a runner-up finish.
Points leader Grant Enfinger hasn’t run on the 1.5 mile track since 2011 and has a runner-up finish there in 2009 when Justin Lofton edged him out at the line.
Winning from the pole has happened five times and the worst starting place for a Chicagoland driver was 34th by Ed Berrier in the inaugural race in 2001.
Four Chicagoland winners have gone on to win the ARCA championship: Frank Kimmel (2003), Justin Lofton (2009), Patrick Sheltra (2010) and Ty Dillon (2011).
ARCA has run with the NASCAR Nationwide Series the last three years. Before that, the series ran with IndyCar from 2001 to 2010.
The Ansell ActivArmr 150 will air live 6 p.m. ET on Saturday on FOX Sports 2 (FS2). It will be one of two ARCA races that air on FS2 with the other being the season finale at Kansas Speedway in October.