For the fourth time in his career, Tom Hessert was able to get to ARCA victory lane after making a pass late in the race for the win.
Grant Enfinger, driver of the Casite-Motor Honey-Advanced Auto Parts #90 Ford, and winner of the first 3 races of the season in the ARCA racing series started from the pole at Talladega Superspeedway in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame 200 and was looking for win number 4 of the 2014 season. Once the green flag flew, the front of the field ran single file up front for the first half of the race with Mason Mitchell, Justin Boston, Mark Thompson, and John Wes Townley rounding out the top 5 behind Enfinger.
Green flag pit stops began on lap 36 of the 76 lap event. Multiple drivers were penalized for speeding on pit road including leader Enfinger who had dominated the first half of the race. Clay Campbell, Mark Thompson, and Frank Kimmel were among the 16 pit road speeding violations. Justin Boston in the #25 Zloop Chevrolet took over the lead after pit stops until lap 54 when he was passed on the track by the Zaxby’s #15 of John Wes Townley.
The first and only caution of the race came out on lap 56 when Justin Allison, grandson of Donnie Allison, in the #88 HAVACOSales.com Ford, blew a right front tire and slammed into the side of Clay Campbell driving the #52 Federated Auto Parts Chevrolet for Ken Schrader Racing, causing Clay to spin out. The caution put many of the the penalized race cars back into contention for the win.
The race went back to green at lap 64 with John Wes Townley in first followed by Boston, Mitchell, and Tom Hessert. Bobby Gerhart, making his 300th start in the series took the lead with 4 laps to go and was quickly over taken by John Wes Townley.
With only two laps to go Tom Hessert, driving the #77 Cunningham Motorsports Caregard-AxiomWarranty.com Dodge took the lead for the first time of the day after passing Townley on the high side and lead the final two laps to win his first ever super speedway race and the 4th win of his career. Hessert was followed by John Wes Townley in 2nd, teammate Austin Wayne Self, driving the #22, in 3rd, Mason Mitchell in 4th and Spencer Gallagher in the #23 rounding out the top 5. The rest of the top 10 were Derrick Lancaster in 6th, Bobby Gerhart 7th, Frank Kimmel 8th, Grant Enfinger 9th, and Buster Graham in 10th.
The ARCA Racing Series next race is at Toledo Speedway on May 18th.
