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 LONG
POND, PA (July 27) -- NASCAR Winston Cup driver Casey Atwood won the
Pepsi ARCA 200 Saturday at Pocono Raceway passing Jason Jarrett with
just 10 laps remaining in the 80-lap race. Atwood was driving Winston
Cup owner Ray Evernham's Dodge Dealers Dodge. The weekend was a good
one for Dodge and Evernham who not only won the ARCA RE/MAX race with
Atwood on Saturday, they also won the Winston Cup race on Sunday with
Bill Elliott.
Casey Atwood led a 40-car field to the starting line
after capturing the Old Milwaukee Pole Award for his qualifying lap of
54.223 seconds (165.981 mph) around the 2.5-mile tri-oval. Frank
Kimmel started alongside Atwood in the front row.
Atwood took the lead at the outset and was the car to
beat all day. Atwood led the first 46 circuits before Billy Venturini
(2 laps), Frank Kimmel (3 laps), Bobby Gerhart (5 laps) and Jason
Jarrett (13 laps) took turns leading before Atwood worked his way back
to the front after pitting for fresh Hoosiers with less than 20-laps
to go.
Atwood, who has spent the last two seasons competing
in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series after a successful stint in the Busch
Series commented, "I’m
only 21 years old. Obviously my Busch wins are special, but my
ultimate goal is to win a Winston Cup race and Winston Cup
championship, and until that happens I’m not really going to be
satisfied. I think we learned a lot this weekend and it’s going to
help us in the future."
Finishing
in second place was Jason Jarrett followed by Mario Gosselin in third
who was making his first-ever start at Pocono Raceway. Fifteen of the
40 race starters finished the event on the lead lap. Bobby Gerhart and
Shelby Howard rounded out the top five.
Frank
Kimmel and Chad Blount, the top two drivers in the ARCA Series point
standings, both suffered mechanical problems and finished a
disappointing 13th and 14th respectively.
Ron Cox earned the Hoosier Performance Tire Hard
Charger Award for advancing the most positions. Cox finished in 12th
after starting 30th.
Hoosier ARCA Product Manager Jeff Speer commented, "All
the competitors were pleased with the performance of the Hoosier radial speedway tires. This is the second event with this tire
set-up." Speer added, " The June Pocono practice was rained out, so all of the feedback was from race conditions. This past week the ARCA series had plenty of track time to practice. With a flat track like Pocono, you need all the grip you can to help turn the heavy 3400 pound race cars. A set of tires could easily run past the 45- lap gas run. Handling, grip, temperature and wear exceeded all
of our expectations."
Frank
Kimmel remains atop the ARCA RE/MAX Series standings with 3480 points
followed by Chad Blount with 3360 points. Jason Jarrett, Chase
Montgomery and Damon Lusk round out the top five in the standings.
The
ARCA Series next travels to Nashville Superspeedway on August 9.
Hoosier
Racing Tire Corp. is the sole provider of tires to the ARCA RE/MAX
Series.
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