Ryan Reed captured his first career ARCA Racing Series victory on Saturday at the Chicagoland Speedway. Reed passed Will Kimmel for the lead on lap 32 and drove away from there. The 21-year old driver led 68 of the 100 laps and delivered Lira Motorsports their first win as an ARCA team.
The California native ran 14 ARCA races in 2012 for Venturini Motorsports. Reed captured one top five and six top 10 finishes in those starts. He has not started a race in the series since then.
Reed started the weekend out strong on Friday by leading the one and only scheduled practice session. During qualifying on Saturday afternoon, Reed got some damage after hitting the wall on the frontstretch and weren’t able to complete a lap. The team had some work to do when the green flag waved after starting in the 28th position.
“I knew that we had a good enough car to win,” Reed said in victory lane. “We unloaded as the fastest driver in practice. It’s just a lot of fun racing with those guys. This is a one-off deal and Carlos told me he wanted to come here to win it.”
Reed is not done. On Sunday, he will compete in the NASCAR XFINITY Series race.
“Well they are quite a bit different,” Reed said after the race on using the win as confidence. “I was playing around a lot with lines and asking Teddy (his crew chief) changes he made so I could understand what kind of changes the track was going through.”
Grant Enfinger, who came into Chicago leading the series point’s standings by 55 over Tom Hessert, took his No. 23 Chevrolet to another runner-up finish. Enfinger took the green flag in the fifth starting spot.
Will Kimmel had another impressive run behind the wheel of his No. 69 Ford. Kimmel was passed on lap 32 by the eventual race winner. The Indiana native started the night from third.
Cody Coughlin, who won the pole for the race, had a very roller-coaster type of day. On lap 19, Coughlin got into an accident on the frontstretch that ended his day. The Venturini Motorsports driver will leave the track with a 26th-place finish.
Coughlin’s teammate, Daniel Suarez, also had some issues strike him in the short race. Suarez blew an engine on lap 63 that forced the driver to finish 22nd. Suarez is another driver who will run in Sunday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race.
The next race for the ARCA Racing Series will be at Winchester. You can watch the race on CBS Sports Network at 2:00 p.m. ET. on Sunday.
About Me: Brett has been following the sport of NASCAR since the beginning of the 2006 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Since Brett was 13, he has had a passion of chasing a job in sports that not many get the opportunity of doing. He has been in the NASCAR media since the middle of the 2010 season. Since then, he has been a part of many racing podcast shows to improve his talents. He has written for racingonfuel.com and theracingwheel.com. Currently, Brett writes for motorsportsnat.com and TracksideChatter.com. You can find him on twitter @NASCAR_Brett.
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