While the race was won by Dakoda Armstrong, a bunch of other drivers came home with solid finishes to be proud of.
This year, Venturini Motorsports has made it a habit of finishing in the top 10 with a variety of drivers. The latest driver to add his name to the list is Ryan Blaney.
Blaney drove the team’s No.25 Lauren Briant/Venturini Motorsports Chevrolet to a sixth place finish after suffering a flat right front tire on lap 162 in his ARCA debut.
“We were trying to take it easy in the race, just trying to save our stuff,” Blaney said, after leading 154 of the first 161 laps. “I think if we could have had 10 more laps after we blew a tire, we could have passed Ty for the lead and then we would have been one lap down and got that caution and been in business. It just wasn’t meant to be.
“I ran the same line I did 50 laps in a row. I was just taking it so easy, especially to help that right front and to keep it from doing what it did. I don’t know if our camber was off or what. But it was a great night. I’ve got to thank Venturini for letting me run this car and making it as good as it was. We’ll get ‘em next time.”
The son of NASCAR veteran Dave Blaney is hoping that he can make some more starts this season.
“It’s great to race in the ARCA (Racing) Series,” Blaney said. “There are really good guys racing, especially here, a place like Winchester.”
Venturini Motorsports also debuted John Blankenship, who finished 10th in the No. 55 Chevrolet, meaning that so far this year Venturini has 11 top 10s with nine different drivers.
Meanwhile, finishing fifth in front of Blaney was Tom Hessert, who was proud to impress numerous guests from Federated Auto Parts, who were on hand as the race’s sponsor.
“The guys in the pits did a really good job of getting us back out,” he said. “We didn’t have the best car; we had a couple issues that were keeping us from being better, but it was a good top-five for the Federated car at a Federated race. It’s good to have a good showing for them. It’s too bad we couldn’t get a win, but in a couple weeks we’ll go to Berlin and we always run really well there.”
For points leader Ty Dillon, it was also a solid day for him as he still finished fouth to pad his points lead despite bottoming out lap in the race.
“It’s unfortunate,” Dillon said. “It doesn’t happen to us often, but it’s still a good points day. We qualified well and led a couple of laps. I’m happy. I just like winning, so it’s a little disappointing to lead laps there at the end of the race and fall off so bad. We saved our stuff all day and rode and were hoping for what happened to happen, for guys to wear their stuff out and us be patient as usual to let the race come to us, but something happened there and we just got too loose.”
The next race for ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards is July 9th at Berlin Raceway.
