Brent Crews dominates with an ARCA East Collection victory at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday afternoon within the Rockingham ARCA 125.
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. – There was by no means a query who had the quickest automobile Saturday afternoon throughout the ARCA Menards Collection East’s return to Rockingham Speedway.
Brent Crews Victory at Rockingham
That honor belonged to Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brent Crews, who began from the Basic Tire Pole and dominated the Rockingham ARCA 125 to attain his first East Collection win and fourth total on the ARCA platform.
“We had an incredible race automobile all day,” stated Crews, who led practically all the 125 laps run Saturday on the historic 0.94-mile oval. “I felt prefer it was actually, actually dominant and that made my job very easy.”
Crews had the most effective automobile all through Saturday’s East Collection occasion, the primary race for the East Collection at Rockingham since 2012, however the race was not with out its challenges.
Brent Crews versus William Sawalich
The Davidson, North Carolina native needed to overcome a number of restarts and subsequent challenges from his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, William Sawalich.
Shortly after a mid-race restart, it appeared Sawalich would clear Crews to take the race lead on the highest, however Crews held regular on the underside and cleared his teammate to retain the race lead.
When the ultimate restart got here on lap 111, Crews powered previous Sawalich to stay on the entrance of the sector, similar to he had finished a number of instances earlier than. With no extra cautions to cease him, Crews drove to victory with a cushty 6.142-second benefit.
“Clear air was large,” stated Crews. “I used to be lucky sufficient that I had a very, actually good race automobile. Even when (Sawalich) was packing air on my right-rear, I felt like I had actually good stability all race, which was an enormous factor.
“We debated going to the highest a pair instances however the shortest approach round was the way in which to go in the present day. (Sawalich) did a very good job on the restarts and pressured me loads. Fortunately, even once I made a mistake I felt like my automobile was so good it will sort of pull me out of the opening once I made an error.”
The win for Crews makes him two-for-two in ARCA platform begins this season. He additionally received the ARCA Menards Collection and ARCA Menards Collection West mixture occasion held on March seventh at Phoenix Raceway.
Sawalich, who was additionally competing within the NASCAR Xfinity Collection race later Saturday afternoon at Rockingham, was undecided what else he wanted to compete with Crews.
“He positively did job, particularly on the long term, so props to him,” Sawalich stated. “Glad JGR may choose up a one-two end. We had Starkey Toyota Camry. Undecided what we wanted, I haven’t been in an ARCA automobile in just a little bit. I’m simply tremendous centered on the Xfinity race. I received 125 laps of observe and I can’t wait. I feel we’re going to have quite a lot of pace there.”
Mexico’s Eloy Falcon, making his ARCA platform debut through a partnership between Rev Racing and Quick Monitor Racing, completed third. Patrick Staropoli and Andy Jankowiak accomplished the highest 5.
Isaac Kitzmiller, Kole Raz, Lanie Buice, Lavar Scott and Spencer Gallagher completed sixth by way of tenth, respectively.
After two races, Isaac Kitzmiller leads the collection level standings by three factors over Kole Raz and 9 factors over third-place driver, Tyler Reif. At ten and 15 factors behind the chief are fourth and fifth place drivers Zachary Tinkle and Takuma Koga.
Up Subsequent
The ARCA Menards Collection East takes the following few weeks off earlier than returning to motion on Could 3 with the working of the Music Metropolis 150 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. FloRacing can have full protection of the occasion beginning at 8:30 p.m. CT / 9:30 p.m. ET.
The following race for the ARCA platform takes place subsequent Saturday, April 26 at Talladega Superspeedway. Followers can watch the ARCA Menards Collection Basic Tire 200 reside on FS1 at 12:30 p.m. ET.
