Connor Mosack repeats Kansas ARCA win with different team

Mosack won his first series race a year ago with Joe Gibbs Racing at Kansas, but Tanner Gray completed dominated much of Saturday’s race driving for the same team – JGR’s No. 18 Toyota – with which Mosack won in 2023.

By the time of the halftime break in the 100-lap race, Gray had built a more than 10-second lead on the field and only five cars remained on the lead lap. A caution late in the race gave Mosack a chance to line up alongside Gray on a restart and he nearly took the lead but briefly fell back.

With 12 laps to go, Mosack was able to mount another challenge and this time he got around Gray for the lead and held him off by 0.470 seconds to claim the win. It’s the second consecutive series win for Pinnacle Racing Group, which won with Connor Zilisch at Dover last weekend.

“I was a little worried about it,” Mosack, 25, said of not catching Gray immediately on the final restart. “I felt like that was our shot to clear him and that we might hold him off if we actually cleared him.

“He ran me up in (Turns) 1 and 2 and did a good job of making me slip there. Then I was a little worried he would drive away. But we had the momentum down in (Turns) 3 and 4) and I thought maybe we could still run with him.

“I’m not sure if he made a mistake but he got pretty high, and I got to his spoiler and was able to clear him.”

Mosack, who raced predominately Late Models and in the SCCA Trans Am Series until venturing into ARCA and NASCAR competition in 2021, is running a variety of series this season, including Saturday night’s NASCAR Truck race with Spire Motorsports.

Mosack said it’s important to turn his strong runs in good equipment into victories.

“This means a lot,” the Charlotte native said. “Last year, running a lot of Xfinity races in winning equipment I definitely made a lot of mistakes trying to learn, probably trying to learn faster than I should.

“I think that’s helped me coming back down to ARCA. All my starts here have been in good equipment and it’s a good opportunity to show what we can do.”

Dean Thompson finished third, Kris Wright was fourth and Jake Finch rounded out the top five.