William Sawalich was dominant in the ARCA Menards Series race at Salem Speedway on Saturday (July 27) night. How dominant? He posted the fastest time in practice, won the pole and led every lap en route to earning his fourth win of the season.
In his second trip to Salem, Sawalich took home the trophy, giving the No. 18 team two wins at the 0.555-mile short track in the past three years.
Sawalich became the third straight ARCA winner at Salem to lead every lap, joining victors Sammy Smith in 2022 and Jesse Love in 2023.
“My Joe Gibbs Racing team gave me a really fast Starkey Soundgear Toyota Camry,” Sawalich victoriously told FOX Sports’ Heather DeBeaux. “Can’t thank them enough for all their hard work. We had a really good car tonight. Honestly not much for complaints from me. Really easy for me as a driver on nights like this.”
Points leader Andres Perez finished second followed by his Rev Racing teammate Lavar Scott in third. Those three were the only three drivers to finish on the lead lap.
The battle from fourth to sixth place was tight in the closing stages of the race, with Will Kimmel coming home fourth, Christian Rose in fifth and Isaac Johnson in sixth.
Cody Dennison and Ryan Roulette finished seventh and eighth, both career-best results and their first national series top 10s.
Brayton Laster wound up ninth with Kris Wright rounding out the top 10 in 10th.
The 11th race of the 2024 season was one full of incidents, with Venturini Motorsports affected the most.
The first one came on the opening lap. As Toni Breidinger appeared to check up momentarily, Greg Van Alst avoided her but made contact with Amber Balcaen. The contact sent Balcaen hard into the backstretch wall, ending her night immediately.
“I was so excited for this race, we had such a good fast Icon Direct No. 22 car in practice and decent qualifying effort and I thought this was going to be a really great race and we just got turned into the wall there,” Balcaen said. “I mean we’re all fighting hard for that top lane because it’s needed for this track. But yeah unfortunately just got turned into the wall. I’m going to have to watch the footage but my crew said I didn’t do anything wrong so I don’t think I did. But we’ll have to go back to watch the footage.
“Physically fine. I really wanted to race all 200 laps on this track. Super fun racetrack, really happy ARCA comes here. I’m really bummed that we’re…
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