Congrats to Natalie Decker on winning the pole for the first race of the ARCA season.
Quite a few Cup folks working this race from crew chief Bootie Barker to spotters T.J. Majors and Eddie Du’ Hondt.
Frank Kimmel is on Lelani Munter’s box for the race.
Caution on lap 23 of 80.The 99 appeared to be blowing up, so maybe the three cars, including Andy Seuss, got into the oil. Looking at what they have for replays it looks like Andy didn’t realize Will Rodgers was beside him as he headed back to the inside line and the contact collected a couple other cars, possibly include Gus Dean. Cody Robaugh was one of the cars involved in that incident.
Zane Smith made contact with Bobby Gerhardt on pit road.
Zane Smith came into the pits in the lead, but won’t leave with the lead.
Sheldon Creed will lead the field to the green flag.
Some of the teams have come in and topped off fuel due to the long caution and may be able to make it on one stop.
Restarting on lap 30 of 80.
The composite cars are in use for the first time at Daytona.
Gus Dean no longer has the left front side panel on his car and he’s still hanging with the lead pack.
Caution on lap 40 for lots of smoke by the 30 of Grant Quinlan. Philly Parsons says it looks like an engine issue as opposed to a tire rub – Kevin Lee’s notion.
Michael Self overshot his pit, then backed up out of his pit, then finally got it in the correct box.
Sheldon Creed will lead them to green flag again.
Natalie Decker had to come back in to top off fuel.
Michael Self said he had a soft pedal causing him to slide through. He apologizes.
Max Tullman has been leading intermittently. He has Doug Richert crew-chiefing on his pit box.
Restarting on lap 46 of 80
Kevin Lee needs to cut out that screaming he breaks into occasionally. Yes, its a restart. Yes its exciting, but a.
The 33 of Daniel Sasnett and the 22 of Ed Pompa and the 2 of Andrew Belmont are involved in an incident on lap 47 of 80 resulting in a crash.
Daniel Sasnett is a former Richard Petty Driving Experience instructor getting a chance to run the race.
The 63 got in the back of the 33 – you could see the rear crunch in – sending him around and into the wall. The 22 and the 2 were trying to avoid hitting other cars and ended up hitting each other head on as they were spinning.
David Gilliland and Bo LeMastus co-own a team that Noah Gragson is driving for in this race. Noah will also be running the truck series with KBM. David put the team together to go Late-Model racing. Noah’s team is working with Sheldon Creed’s team on a restart deal.
Restarting on lap 56 of 80.
Natalie Decker is losing pieces of her car with 23 laps to go. Accordion effect accident. Tullman got into the back of Bobby Gerhardt and Natalie got into Tullman. So far the caution hasn’t yet come out.
Chase Purdy pushes Sean Corr on the outside lane to the lead, then immediately tries to pass him. Corr drops down in front of Sheldon Creed with Noah Gragson pushing him and they roll away leaving Purdy stranded in the top lane. I hope Purdy really is a rookie making a rookie mistake like that.
Gus Dean’s car has a lot of flapping of the hood after the damage from the earlier incident.
Natalie is running for the championship this season.
Wreck with 16 to go bringing out the caution. Bo LeMastus – driving for Chad Bryant, Houff, Brian Dauzat, John Ferrier, involved.
Austin Theriault is in the booth. I hope he doesn’t have a future in broadcasting. The crew at NBC are so bad its tough to say they won’t hire him, but I hope even they can hear that’s a bad idea. I’m guessing he’s just trying to keep his visibility up since it sounds like he doesn’t have a gig.
Mark Thompson – age 66 – is driving the 66 – making his 100th ARCA start. Carl Long is his crew chief and they’re trying to get data for their Cup car.
Restarting on lap 71 of 80.
Sean Corr will lead them to the green flag.
I wish they would stop with the in-car shots during long sections of the race. That limited view is aggravating and non at all enlightening.
Sheldon Creed is out front with 8 to go.
Caution is out for Tony Mrakovich who is sitting stopped on the apron with 8 to go. Mrakovich got into Michael Self sending him to the wall, then Mrakovich hit the wall.
The 43 of Sean Corr is a Petty Blue car.
Restarting on lap 76 of 80.
Someone needs to let Kevin know its better to tell us what lap they’re starting on instead of what lap they’re on coming to the green flag.
the 20 of lelani munter is rolling through the grass and it stays green
whitle flag with sheldon creed leading
Caution and the final lap. Big wreck. A car turned toward the wall then went up on its side. Mark Thompson (66) involved, 23 of Brett Holmes is on his side. Gus Dean is involved. Zane Smith was also involved.
Red flag 1835
The green and white flags will be displayed o the restart – a single lap shoot out – barring another caution. The race will end under green.
They’ve lowered the 23 car onto its tires.
The 18 (Riley Herbst) pushed the 32 (Gus Dean) into the 23 (Bret Holmes) which turned him sideways and he lifted off on the front of Gus Dean’s 32 car and in front of Mark Thompson’s 66. The 41 was involved. Dave Mader III (63) made contact with (41 )Zane Smith
Caution 1855.
Philly and his ‘give a call’.
There’s a Belgian in the field Jerry de Weeredt doing his fist oval race over 1/2 mile.
Noah Gragson is coming down pit road. He’s getting fuel. He came on the radio and said he was out.
Oh No! Kevin Lee said ‘a lot of puckering on pit road’. Somebody take that mic from him, he’s past his expiration date.
Con Nicolopolous just came and got fuel.
Sheldon Creed’s crew chief is worried about fuel.
The field is getting the one to go signal.
Natalie Decker is blowing steam coming to the green flag.
They’re pushing the two lead cars through the corners
Big wreck as Sean Corr went around from the push.
The 8 of Chase Purdy was involved. The 06 of Chuck Hiers, the 18 of Riley Herbst involved, the 27 of Travis Braden involved. The 48 of Brad Smith involved. Jerry de Weerdt in the 38 involved. 43 Sean Corr
They’re parking the cars at 1909 on the track, red flag.
Sheldon Creed got a little bit of that and is back to fifth. He rolled through the grass, but kept rolling.
Michael Self is currently being scored in the lead.
Noah Gragson is going to have to go to the tail end of the field. The officials are saying he was laying back on the restart. He was going to have a penalty before the crash occurred. That’s typically a drive-through penalty, but since there will only be one lap apparently they just send him to the rear of the field.
No more practice for the Cup cars after the Clash.
Bill Gerhart, Bobby’s brother, is his crew chief.
Caution is out 1940.
Sean Corr said his father is in the hospital in New Smyrna recovering from a stomach operation. He was hoping to bring him a trophy and hopes he got to see Sean up front before it all went wrong. Tad Moffitt, Richard Petty’s 17-year-old grandson is a development driver in Sean Corr’s program who had nice things to say about his work ethic.
The 28 of Sheldon Creed said he has a flat. The right rear looks down. He had to come into the pits from the lead.
The 9 is also in the pits.
Noah Gragson is supposed to go to the back though he’s still sticking to his position.
Natalie Decker is behind him – she will be restarting fourth.
Michael Self and Willie Mullins will be starting on the front row.
One to go.
Noah is finally letting the field go by him, dropping to the back. He stopped at the back of the lead lap cars, and they told him to keep going back to the end.
The 46 is out of fuel and going into the pits.
Michael Self jumped out to a good lead and held on to win for Venturini Motorsports. Sheldon Creed finished third.
Tom Hessert finished fourth.
Natalie Decker finished fifth.
Lelanie Munter finished eighth.