 SPRINGFIELD,
IL (August 23, 2009) -- Parker Kligerman collected his sixth ARCA RE/MAX
Series win of the season. His latest win came in the Allen Crowe 100 at
the historic Illinois State Fairgrounds. The 19-year-old rookie driver
collected the win despite having never raced on dirt before Sunday's race.
Kligerman also became the youngest winner in the 47-year history of the
event.
Kligerman surpassed last year's ARCA RE/MAX champion, Justin Allgaier, as
the event's youngest winner. Allgaier won in 2006 when he was just 20 years
old.
Ironically, Allgaier and Kligerman both drive for Penske racing and it was
Allgaier who Kligerman credited in the winner's circle with providing him the
advice he needed to take the win.
Kligerman stated, "Before
practice Justin Allgaier came up to the car and just sort of told me to watch
out for certain things. He told me not to be worried and gave me little
pointers-just confidence building stuff."
Kligerman added, "Before the race
he came up to the car and gave me a rundown of everything that I should do.
Watch out for this; don't do this. Definitely don't do this. And I think those
tips were a huge part of it. I think that's what kept us from being
freight-trained."
Kligerman listened to the
"elder" Allgaier who currently sits in fifth place in the NASCAR
Nationwide Series.
In qualifying, 38 cars were entered
with 32 actually posting times.
Justin Lofton earned his fifth pole of
the season after setting a new track record in qualifying with a time of 32.332
seconds (110.592 mph) around the 1-mile clay oval. Lofton eclipsed last year's
record (32.878 seconds) set by Frank Kimmel.
Parker Kligerman was second in
qualifying and started the race on the outside of polesitter Justin Lofton.
The race featured six leaders among
four different drivers.
Drivers leading during the event
included; Justin Lofton 1-21, 70-88 (40 laps), Parker Kligerman 22-24, 89-103
(18 laps), Ron Cox 25-35 (11 laps) and Frank Kimmel 36-69 (34 laps).
The race was slowed eight time for cautions
for a total of 42 laps.
Ultimately, the race ended with a
green-white-checker finish which extended the race 3 laps beyond the scheduled
100 circuits.
At the finish it was Kligerman taking
the win by 2.638 seconds over Ron Cox.
It was Cox's best-ever finish in the
series.
Patrick Sheltra finished in third
place followed by AJ Fike and Steve Arpin in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Polesitter Justin Lofton finished in sixth place followed by Kenny Schrader,
Will Kimmel, Frank Kimmel and Matt Merrell to round out the top ten.
Unofficially, Parker Kligerman now holds a 35-point lead in the driver
standings over Justin Lofton with Frank Kimmel maintaining third in the
rankings.
Next up, the ARCA RE/MAX Series travels to Chicagoland Speedway this Friday,
August 28th, for the Ansell Cut Protection 150.
Feel free to visit www.arcaracing.com
for more information about the ARCA RE/MAX Series.
Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. is proud to be the official tire of the ARCA
RE/MAX Series.
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