For the third time in four starts this season, Corey LaJoie would pick up the win in the ARCA Series, winning the ZLOOP 150 at Kentucky Speedway.
“We were strong and once we got clean air, that was all it took,” LaJoie said. “I have to thank RPM, my dad, my grandpa – everyone that helped us get here.”
LaJoie took the lead on a restart with 32 laps to go from Chad Boat and never looked back as he was able to hold off Mason Mitchell.
“The weekend was really smooth,” LaJoie’s crew chief Harold Holly commented. “I just got to thank Roush-Yates for the engines they supply and RPM for the support. But mostly, I have to thank Corey. He did a lot of the set-up work and getting the car ready and drove a heck of a race.”
Lajoie, son of Nationwide Series champion Randy LaJoie, has signed a development contract with Richard Petty Motorsports.
The second place finish for Mason Mitchell marks his career best finish, beating his previous career best of a fifth.
“I don’t know what I could’ve done to get by him,” Mitchell commented afterwards. “It’s really good to have a good run. I don’t know what else I could’ve done.”
Spencer Gallagher slipped into third on that restart and tried to get by Mitchell for second, but was unable to.
“My car was handling fantabulous today,” he said. “Can’t thank my guys enough. There was a lot of persnickety out there, it was sideways at times.”
When asked what he learned about throughout the day, Gallagher said he learned there’s a lot of bumps at Kentucky.
“There’s bumps on one end of the track, and then on the other end of track,” he commented. “When the car hits the bumps, it doesn’t like it but this is a fantastic Kentucky Speedway.”
Grant Enfinger finished fourth after running inside the top 10 throughout the day.
“I think we needed another caution at the end,” he commented. “I definitely like the four tires better than the two tires. we had to be gutsy to get up there. it just didn’t work out like we wanted with the cautions. We’re working hard, we’re making progress. We’re not where we want to be with our mile and a half program but we’re getting better. I hope we can make some more gains at Kansas and be in contention.”
Chad Boat rounded out the top five after leading some laps late in the race. Erik Jones would bounce back from pit road issues to finish sixth followed by Will Kimmel, Justin Boston, Frank Kimmel and Mason Mingus.
Chase Elliott led laps early, though pulled down pit road at lap 40 due to his car shutting off. The result was due to water in the fuel lines.
Going into the final event of the season, Frank Kimmel leads Mingus by 315 points and just needs to start the race at Kansas to win his 10th career championship.
“It’s been a special year just because of our consistency,” he said. “I put ourselves in a hole today when I crashed in practice and put us in a back-up car. I think it was 40 minutes for the guys to get the backup car on track. the car was pretty good overall, just was down on power due to not being able to have enough time to switch the motors.
“We’ll bring our best car to Kansas and do our best to win the championship and maybe get the 80th win.”
I like Corey LaJoie and I feel still he should have won the East National Title over Kyle Larson because I like Corey LaJoie to win Sprint Cup Titles.