In the ARCA Menards Series General Tire 150 from Dover Motor Speedway, 17-year-old phenom Connor Zilisch emerged victorious for the first ARCA victory of his career.
In a race defined by a series of wrecks that eliminated numerous contenders, the young Zilisch progressed steadily through the field to position himself for the win as the race drew to a close.
“I can’t even lie, those first 70 laps, I was pretty intimidated…, and I was down on myself running fifth or sixth and not being able to make up ground,” Zilisch said of his early struggles to FOX Sports. “Those restarts were hectic, but we kept it up front and got ourselves a win at the Mile.”
William Sawalich dominated early, leading every lap of the first segment prior to the lap 50 break. By the time lap 50 went up on the board and the caution flew for the first scheduled break, the number of cars left on the lead lap had been whittled down to nine.
While the beginning stages of the race played out nearly incident-free, the remainder of the event was defined by multiple incidents which eliminated several contenders.
The first of several race-defining moments occurred on the lap 69 restart, as Gio Ruggiero pounced on leader Sawalich to take the lead. However, Ruggiero was penalized for a restart violation, as ARCA officials ruled that he fired before control-car Sawalich and executed an illegal restart. While the penalty cost Ruggiero the lead, he remained in contention with less than 10 cars on the lead lap.
Shortly after the restart in question, the ARCA points leader entering Dover, Christian Rose, pounded the wall off of turn 4 as he experienced an apparent tire failure.
“It just went straight on me, I don’t know if we cut a tire down or if something broke,” Rose said. “But for only running 10 to 15 laps, I can’t imagine we had a tire go down in (turn) 4, and there’s nothing you can do but just hang on.”
Also swept up in the incident was Amber Balcaen, who hit the inside retaining wall hard as she took evasive action to miss Rose. While Rose emerged unhurt, Balcaen received medical attention for some lower leg discomfort following the accident.
“It was either drive right into him, or try to cut down and miss him, but a lot happens really fast at this racetrack,” Balcaen said. “We’re gonna check on it, and I’m going to do everything in my power to be…
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