After running up front and close racing with teammate Justin Boston, Brennan Poole would pick up the victory in the Patriot Pumps 200 at Michigan International Speedway on Friday afternoon.
“We should have had more wins than this,” Poole’s crew chief Kevin Reed said. “These guys are just flawless. We’ve been the fastest car at every track. Looking forward to next week with John Wes and then the week after with Kyle Benjamin.”
Poole made his way up to the second position behind Boston and was closing in on him. When Poole got underneath of Boston with 12 laps to go, Poole would get loose and slide up towards Boston. The air, not any contact, would cause Boston to get loose and go around on the backstretch. Poole would pick up the lead and was able to hold off Ryan Blaney and Frank Kimmel on the late race restart.
“The car was just really good today,” Poole said. “We struggled in traffic behind Justin and I got underneath him at the door and got loose – we never touched, but I thought we were done after that. I don’t know what my next opportunity will be – but I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Blaney would have the most dominant car all day long and would lead the most laps, however would lose the lead when his team decided to short pit with 32 laps to go. The caution would then come out four laps later and Blaney was able to get the lucky dog, requiring him to start at the tail end of the last line.
When it came time for the restart, Blaney started behind the lead lap cars, however was not at the tail end of the longest line. Therefore, ARCA deemed it an illegal start and required Blaney to back off till he fell back in line before allowing him to make his charge to the front.
“I learned a lot today,” Blaney said. “Definitely learned how the track changed throughout the race. I thought we had the dominant car all day. We were just riding out there at front. We came in early, short pitted and hoped it would string out.
“We were supposed to be start seventh and the guy who I was supposed to start in front of dropped down and ARCA said we should have started behind him. I burned my stuff up trying to get back up there and if we would have started where we were supposed to, we would have been fine.”
Points leader Frank Kimmel finished third while Boston made his way back up to fourth. Grant Enfinger rounded out the top five.
Tires were a concern throughout the day as three of the four cautions were due to drivers having flat tires. mason Mitchell had the fire problem on lap 25, followed by Tom Hessert on lap 42 and Spencer Gallagher with 28 laps to go.
“We were okay there, struggling a bit,” Hessert said. “We did a four tire stop and went into the run. I don’t know how long we were into that run, but we blew a tire going into the turn and hit the wall.”
The ARCA teams will now turn their attention to Road America as they get set to do battle on the road course.
