TBK-Light.com

I'm interested to see how Kyle Weatherman does in his ARCA debut. He's from a town not far from me. Looking at his website, the Mittler Brothers are one one of his sponsors. It looks like he's turned in some good laps in practice and qualified 7th for the race.

Results from Salem, featuring favorites Milka Duno and JWT:


I honestly want to hear from Jeff about this race.

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First half of the race was pretty clean, had a few cautions. Williams and Bowen tangled going into turn 1 and hit the wall head on with Bo Lemastus piling in. Had one spin coming to green on a restart. Frank Kimmel had the race locked up until Spencer Gallagher spun him out of the lead with a few laps left. Gallagher led on the final restart but Hessert passed him in 1 and 2 for the lead on the last lap. Lot of torn up cars, 15 running at the finish.

The entire second half of the race was a clusterfuck, and incredibly unpredictable.

Hessert was a lap down at one point, and got a free pass, so was Will Kimmel, who finished 3rd. Probably one of the wilder ARCA races at Salem that I've been to, even with just 28 starters.

Not sure if I'll get all my ARCA stuff up tonight(have a bit of a headache), but I'll start off by posting photos from the Crosley Radio 50 held just prior to the ARCA race.

arcasalem4282013 007 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 021 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 024 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
Can't see anything out of that windshield...

arcasalem4282013 025 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 031 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 073 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

And yes, that's Geoff Bodine presenting the trophy to the winner. He's been working with the #42 team of Bo Lemastus this year in ARCA, and Crosley Radio has been doing a lot of associate sponsorships of ARCA related things.

Cool looking stock cars.

Someone put together a photo sequence of the big wreck from today's race. Much better pictures than Jeff or I got of it.

Wow, all three cars got torn up pretty bad in that crash.

I've decided to try to do some more "people shots" in addition to all the pictures of cars. I've been doing Victory Lane / Pole Award photos for awhile, yesterday I decided to try driver intros for a change. Some guys were enthusiastic, others, not so much.

arcasalem4282013 168 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 223 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
The #06 of James Swanson had a small fire under his hood just after the race started. The car was smoking for a few minutes until they got it out, but it was nothing to the point where the driver had to bail out quickly. I overheard one of the team members mention the car had a broken transmission and only had second gear, so they wouldn't have run too many laps anyhow.

arcasalem4282013 292 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 295 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 301 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
The #40 of Nick Tucker finds the outside wall after contact from the #69 of Travis Swaim.

arcasalem4282013 407 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
Mark Meuiner cut a tire and hit the wall in his #70.

arcasalem4282013 419 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 444 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 464 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 466 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
The biggest crash of the race.

arcasalem4282013 469 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 425 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 511 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

arcasalem4282013 514 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
Mason Mitchell spun and hit the inside frontstretch wall.

arcasalem4282013 568 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

dem street stocks

And Twitter after yesterday's race:

@JGR_NNS_Car: @BillyVenturini really had u pegged to win 2day. What happened 2 JWT?

@BillyVenturini: Had car 2 win & @23SpeedRacer ran him n2 wall #clueless

@23SpeedRacer: Golf clap for the uneducated Twitter bash!

@BillyVenturini: @23SpeedRacer Do you even understand what the word uneducated means? I have 29 wins in arca, I think I'm educated in this field.

Sounds like they've been taking Twitter lessons from Logano and Hamlin.

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Gael

Bobby Gerhart has apparently closed his shop and is selling his entire team inventory.

http://arcaracing.com/classifieds.php?page=1

RIP Bobby Gerhart's career

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Bobby wasn't happy about his car not making it through tech with illegal truck arms and something to do with the RF spring. There were three other cars that failed tech for the same reasons (Townley was one), they dealt with it and raced. I guess Gerhart wasn't happy that he wasn't ARCA's favorite....

What Gerhart said, for those wondering:

And not a shit was given.

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And look who's on the entry list for Toledo...

Bobby was at the track yesterday. I'm wondering why he's here myself. Maybe LUCAS told him he had to race as part of their agreement or something, who knows. I've seen other ARCA teams that raced while everything was for sale.


#5 Bobby Gerhart & #97 Roger Carter, 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
There were plenty of incidents yesterday despite it just being practice/qualifying. Bo Lemastus spun in Turn 1 and hit the wall with the right side of his car. Kelly Kovski spun off Turn 4 in qualifying and just grazed the wall with the rear of his car. Robert Bujdoso hit the frontstretch wall off 4 and then spun it into Turn 1, destroying his car. Lemastus and Bujdoso are listed in the starting lineup for today's race but they may not run.

#42 Bo Lemastus Spin(1), 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

2013 Menards 200 Pole Winner, Kyle Benjamin, by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

#7 Spin(2), 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

#52 Kenny Kirsch Jr., 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr
There was this wreck in the ARCA Truck Series race yesterday. The #7 spun in Turn 4 and stopped about halfway across the track. Several guys got by fine until the leaders came, the #54 and #25 got together but kept going with fender damage to the #25, and then the #52 knocked the rear of the #7 off. About as clean of a cut as you can get. The #7 even drove off, sans rear panel & spoiler.

#25 Cody Quarrick & #54 Levi Mansfield, 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

#25 Cody Quarrick & #81 Shawn Szep, 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

2013 Grogan Towne 50 Victory Lane - 2013 Menards 200, Toledo Speedway, Toledo,OH 5/18/2013 by bluegrassrailfan, on Flickr

Album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluegrassr ... 516058933/

I will probably be down in Turns 3 and 4 for today's race, may be up by pit entrance. Keep an eye out for me on today's Speed broadcast!