And Then There Was One – Venturini Motorsports Unlucky at Toledo |
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Topics: Menards 200 by Federated Car Care, Steve Arpin, Mikey Kile
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Emily Teeter
Venturini Motorsports
May 24, 2010
TOLEDO, OH (05-24-10) ARCA Racing’s home track of Toledo Speedway brought some unlucky mishap to Venturini Motorsports this past Sunday for the Menards 200 Presented by Federated Car Care. Practice went well for the team, as Mikey Kile was second on the speed charts.
And then to qualifying – if you are ever taking bets on qualifying, look to the no. 25 driver of Mikey Kile. Kile is the only ARCA driver this season to qualify in the top 5 for every 2010 ARCA Racing Series start. Mikey Kile is 50% in earning the outside pole award; he has qualified 2nd three out of six races this season.
For the third time this season, Kile started on the outside pole. Steve Arpin, driver of the no. 55 Mike’s Hard Lemonade Toyota started 8th and AJ Frank, driver of the no. 15 Venturini Motorsports Toyota for his ARCA debut, started on the outside of row six.
All 3 Venturini Motorsports drivers ran in the top 10 positions. Mikey Kile and Steve Arpin both ran in the top-5 for a majority of the race. But at the end of the day it felt as if Venturini Motorsports had picked up an unlucky penny. On lap 98, a midrace, multicar incident suffered AJ Frank a 24th place finish.
Forty laps later, Steve Arpin and Frank Kimmel were in a side-by-side battle. Kimmel snuck underneath Arpin in turns three and four, got loose, overcorrected the no. 44, and made hard contact with Arpin sending the no. 55 directly into wall. Arpin drove the no. 55 Mike’s Hard Lemonade Toyota to his pit stall for the crew to assess the damage before it was pulled into the pit area and put on jack stands ending the night for a second Venturini Motorsports car.
As the green flag dropped to resume the racing action, Venturini Motorsports turned all attention to the no. 25 of Mikey Kile, the only Venturini Motorsports car on the track and put the past misfortunes behind them. With 50 laps to go, Mikey Kile was running in the 5th position. Hoping that the unlucky streak had escaped the no. 25 team, Mikey Kile was spun by the no. 22 on lap 171. The team took a deep breath, pitted the no. 25 for two tires and sent him back on the track. The green flag dropped with Mikey Kile one lap down. He made a hard charge through the field, putting himself in contention for the Lucky Dog, but the caution flag never came out. Mikey Kile ended the race in the 10th position.
It was an unfortunate day for Venturini Motorsports, but Steve Arpin was quick to point out that, “The team brought three great racecars to Toledo and we just had some bad luck today. But that’s short track racing. We have a lot of data to work with when we return back to Toledo in the fall. Our short track program is definitely improving.”
After a weekend in Toledo, Ohio the team decided to do a little bit of unwinding at Cedar Point Amusement Park before heading to Michigan International Speedway for the open test session on Tuesday. The crew and drivers had a blast at the park and the rush of the roller coasters made for a great refresh before heading back to the track for prepare for the Racing for Wildlife 200 at Michigan Int’l Speedway on June 11th.
Venturini Motorsports will head to the 7th stop on the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards on June 5th at Pocono Raceway for the Messina Wildlife Animal Stopper 200. The green flag will drop at 1:00 PM ET for 200 miles of racing. The race will be aired on SPEED at 4:00 PM ET. For live coverage, tune into arcaracing.com or follow the team on twitter (@venturinimotor).