The Road Less Traveled: ARCA Makes Fifth Visit to New Jersey Motorsports Park
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 (TOLEDO, Ohio) - A strong majority of the races leading up to ARCA's 60th Anniversary Season have been contested with left turns only - events on short tracks, speedways, and dirt tracks. Fifteen races, however, have taken different paths, and New Jersey Motorsports Park's Thunderbolt Raceway will host the 16th road course event in series history Sunday. |
ARCA Racing Series teams will practice twice Saturday, from 11:20 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. and 1:40 to 2:40. Menards Pole Qualifying presented by Ansell - in groups of five as determined by practice speeds - will start at 4:30. The 67-lap, 150-mile race - the fifth for ARCA on the 2.25-mile New Jersey course - will start at 1 p.m. Sunday, with live timing and scoring and live audio coverage presented by the ARCA Racing Network available at ARCARacing.com. The ARCA event is one of several races scheduled over New Jersey's All-American Race Weekend presented by Global Barter Corporation. Road course racing is new to many competitors in the ARCA Racing Series. In fact, just 15 of the drivers entered for this weekend's race have experience at New Jersey. Frank Kimmel, Tom Hessert, and James Hylton have each made all four starts on the track. Of the top three drivers in the point standings, only second-place competitor Chris Buescher has prior road racing experience. He finished third at New Jersey in 2010 and led laps last season before an incident knocked him out of contention. 21-year-old points leader Brennan Poole, who is currently 25 points clear of Buescher going into the final race of the season's first half, will make his first road racing stock car laps this week. "A road course is something I've never done before in a full-bodied stock car and will be interesting," said the driver of the No. 25 Venturini Motorsports Toyota. "I'm going to do everything I can to be prepared for that." Alex Bowman, who won Sunday at the half-mile Winchester Speedway to move past Kimmel into third in the standings, feels confident about his chances despite not totally knowing what's in store. "I think we'll be real strong," said the 19-year-old, who drives the No. 22 Dodge for Cunningham Motorsports. "I've never been on a road course, so I don't really know what to expect. I've run some Spec Miata stuff and some shifter kart stuff and I enjoyed that, so I think the road course will be a lot of fun and it will definitely be a learning experience, something I'll hopefully be able to use in the future. Outside of testing, video games and simulators are another way to prepare. After finishing sixth at Winchester Sunday, Win-Tron Racing's Mason Mingus said he would spend a day at Turner Motorsports trying out a road course simulator. Like some drivers, Mingus also attended the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Arizona to prepare for road competition. Defending New Jersey winner Andrew Ranger will make his first ARCA start of 2012 on Sunday. Last year, the Canadian driver led eight laps - including the final two after a thrilling pass over Australian George Miedecke - to win his ARCA debut. Ranger made two other ARCA starts later in the year, and finished in the top five in both. Chase Elliott, the current points leader in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, will make his third of six planned ARCA starts this year. The event will be his first on a road course. Likewise, three-time Chili Bowl Midget Nationals champion Kevin Swindell will make one of his eight planned starts for the year at New Jersey. Full-time drivers in the ARCA Racing Series have won six of the nine races this year; that's two apiece for Poole, Buescher, and Bowman. Kimmel, Chad Hackenbracht, Matt Lofton, Hessert, Ryan Reed, Jared Marks, and Spencer Gallagher will all search for their first wins of 2012 over 67 laps in southern New Jersey. The event will be the second on the Bill France Four Crown schedule. The Bill France Four Crown is presented at year's end to the driver earning the most in-race points on a diverse slate of tracks: Michigan International Speedway, New Jersey Motorsports Park, the Illinois State Fairgrounds, and Salem Speedway. 2012 is the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards' 60th Anniversary Season, featuring 20 races at 18 tracks. The complete 2012 event schedule is available at ARCARacing.com. The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 race tracks in 26 states since its inception. The series has tested the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, visiting tracks ranging from 0.375 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course in its most recent season. This year, the series visited Alabama's Mobile International Speedway and Minnesota's Elko Speedway for the first time. Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. Closing in on completing its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in three professional touring series and local weekly events. CONTACT: Griffin Hickman, ARCA Don Radebaugh, ARCA |
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