POCONO, Pa – NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Trevor Bayne scored his first career ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards victory Saturday afternoon in the Pocono ARCA 200 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.
Bayne, the 2011 Daytona 500 winner making a one-off appearance with Cunningham Motorsports in hopes of improving his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series effort on Sunday led 42 of the races’ 80 laps to give the team their third victory of 2015.
And their second straight triumph.
After rain delayed the open-test session for the series on Wednesday, the Knoxville, Tennessee-native turned 10 laps in Wednesday’s test session at the 2.5-mile triangle, before leaving for a friend’s wedding. Roush Fenway Racing development driver Kyle Weatherman and the most recent ARCA winner took over for Bayne in the No. 22 Advocare Ford Fusion, but crashed near the end of the session forcing the team to a backup car.
In the end, that didn’t matter for Bayne or the team as he cruised to a 4.579-second victory in the first of two ARCA races from Pocono this season.
“It’s awesome to get to run my first ARCA race, my first race at Pocono, my first race to be in Victory Lane this year,” said a jubilant Bayne. “It’s a cool opportunity. I’m thankful to Jack Roush and Advocare were able to put it together with Cunningham Motorsports. Paul Andrews (crew chief) and Kyle Weatherman did a great up here at the test getting what I needed in the racecar. That made my life a lot easier this weekend.”
Bayne wasn’t the fastest during the lone ARCA Racing Series practice on Friday afternoon, but Andrews and the team never gave up and with patience and a few adjustments made prior to qualifying, the Mooresville, North Carolina-based team was able to get the car dialed into their drivers liking.
“Basically, I was able to get in the backup car and fire off pretty quick, had to work through some things to get driving exactly like I needed it. But, qualifying and then in the race, the
car would do anything pretty much anything I wanted to. It’s not often you get a race car like that. I had a lot of fun.”
While Bayne was a favorite heading into Wednesday’s open test session, the loss of the primary car and the strength of several other ARCA key players changed the pre-race favorites.
However, Michael Lira, sporting on the fastest cars of the week lost his car due to a test crash within minutes from its conclusion. On Saturday during qualifying, two pre-race contenders Kyle Benjamin and Matt Tifft saw their fast rides demolished with separate incidents into the Turn 3 wall.
JR Motorsports driver and current NASCAR Next protégé Cole Custer entered in his penultimate ARCA race of the year failed to overcome handling issues in his No. 00 Chevrolet and broke an axle early in the 80-lap race.
All those setbacks played into the hands of Bayne and Mason Mitchell, but in the end, Bayne would look like a veteran than an experience rookie.
Last June, Kyle Larson won in his Pocono ARCA debut on Saturday and then backed it up with a stellar fifth place finish on Sunday, but the 22-year old noted that it will take a lot to get his No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford up to the same standards for the Axalta “We Paint Winners 400.”
“Well, Jack (Roush) asked if we could borrow this car for tomorrow’s race,” Bayne joked. “We’re definitely off a little bit, we’re working on our car. It’s really tight. Obviously, the Cup cars are different being able to shift and do things like that. I’ve got things to learn here in that car. I think today (Saturday) will help on working speed into the tunnel turn and working on being on the bottom off of Turn 3.
“That was really crucial. You could see guys overdrive the corner just a little bit and they would end up two lanes too high and you could drive right by them on the bottom. Today definitely gives me confidence for tomorrow (Sunday), but we’ve got to get my car a little better.”
Championship points leader Grant Enfinger was second followed by reigning ARCA champion Mason Mitchell third, Will Kimmel and Matt Kurzejewski rounded out the top-five.
Enfinger who opened the season with three consecutive ARCA Racing Series triumphs said Bayne was the car to beat.
“We didn’t have anything for the 22 (Bayne) at the end, I feel like he was the class of the field,” said Enfinger. “I feel like second for our team right now is a very good stepping-stone.
Much needed. We got off to a really good start at the beginning of the season and then had some bad runs there. We just needed some solid footing and we got that today. We were not very good at all Wednesday and we turned it into a good racecar today.”
Bayne’s teammate Tom Hessert III was sixth followed by Josh Williams, David Levine, Lebanon’s Bobby Gerhart and Matt Tifft to round out the top-10.
And of those pre-race hopefuls, all expect Tifft suffered major blows during the 1 hour, 35 minute, 57-second race.
Making just his third start of the season, W. Des Moines, Iowa native Mitchell felt he maybe could have hunted Bayne for the victory, but obstacles stood in his way.
“Honestly, I felt like our car was a lot better this year than last year, just seemed like we were on different strategy the whole race,” Mitchell offered. “We struggled a little bit on pit road and got behind there with track position on the first run. Then, I think we had an issue with the jack that hit our right side skirt, definitely didn’t help us turn as good as we were. We were on older tires, I thought we had a really good car there I think we might have been able to contend for it, but who knows. It’s pretty disappointing to be honest. But, hopefully we’ll be back again sometime soon.”
The race was mired by several early race cautions, four in all for a total of 22 laps.
The event’s only female racer Sarah Cornett-Ching showed speed early and sought a top-10 finish, but suffered engine failure on Lap 57 and retired from the race with a 20th place finish.
After eight races, Enfinger unofficially leads Williams by 65 points heading to Michigan International Speedway next Friday afternoon for the Corrigan Oil 200 on June 12.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
