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 DAYTONA,
FL (February 8) -- Chase Montgomery won his first ARCA race of his
young career leading the final 26 laps to capture the historic win at
Daytona International Speedway.
The 19-year-old driver from Tennessee bested veteran Bob Strait for
the win under the watchful eye of his newly signed sponsor, former
shock-rocker, Alice Cooper.
A forty-car field took the green flag Saturday on the
famous 2.5-mile Daytona track. The field was led to the starting line
by Bobby Gerhart who earned the pole position by virtue of his 48.848
second lap (184.245 mph) in qualifying. Gerhart was joined in the
front row by Billy Venturini with Chase Montgomery in third and Jeremy
Clements making up the second row.
Pole-sitter Gerhart immediately jumped out to the race
lead, a lead he held for the first 30 laps before Michigan's Mike
Buckley took a turn out front. Buckley's lead was short lived when
Gerhart moved back into the lead on lap 34. Gerhart led the next 19
laps before cutting a tire down requiring two stops for service.
Gerhart's woes turned over the race lead to young Chase Montgomery and
his Alice Cooper-Montgomery Racing Pontiac on lap 55.
From there the young hot-shoe fought off all
challengers to capture the biggest win of his career. The Tennessee
driver commented in the winner's circle, "I'm thrilled; this is
my first win period. I did win a go-kart heat race once, but this is
remarkable." From a go-kart heat race win to a winner at Daytona,
quite a step up for the young Mt. Juliet, TN driver.
Finishing in second place behind Montgomery was 18th
starting Bob Strait. Billy Venturini, Keith Segars and Frank Kimmel
rounded out the top five. Amazingly, 22 of the 40 race starters finished
the 80-lap race on the lead lap.
The race had seven cautions for a total of 29 laps.
Andy Hillenburg won the Hoosier Hard Charger Award for advancing the
most positions when he finished 8th after starting 33rd.
Hoosier ARCA Product Manager Jeff Speer was at Daytona for
technical support the entire week of practice and qualifying. Speer commented, "Overall the tires worked great. We returned to Daytona with the wider tire
set-up which was introduced last year at the 2002 Daytona ARCA race. We
found the wider tire gives the cars parity between all speedways and more stability at the
superspeedways." Speer added, "The Daytona tread compound has always performed well giving the teams 60 - 75 laps of wear.
Based on the success of the tires the teams enjoyed on Saturday, we
have no plans to change our Daytona set-up moving forward."
Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. is proud to be the exclusive
tire supplier to the ARCA RE/MAX Series.
The next stop on the ARCA RE/MAX Series schedule is at
Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 8th which will be carried live on
SPEED Channel beginning at 1:00 pm eastern.
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