Catchfence

DUQUOIN, IL (September 7, 2010) – For the third time this season, Steve Arpin has emerged the victor in the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards. This time it was on the dirt in the Southern Illinois 100 presented by Federated Car Care at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds.

“We had a great race car all through practice and qualifying, but I was a little nervous the handling would go away early in the race,” said an elated Arpin. “Billy (Venturini) and Kevin (Caldwell) did a great job of reassuring me that we were in good shape…that we may need to work on it, but we had plenty of adjustability built into the car…that’d we’d be fine once things got going.”

Arpin’s win also marked the first dirt track victory for his Venturini Motorsports team.

“It was a great day for Venturini Motorsports,” said team manager Billy Venturini. “We have a long and pretty honorable history in this series, and it was great to finally get a win here on the dirt. We’ve won just about everywhere else, and had some great dirt drivers. We spent a lot of time with Mark Richards and Rocket Chassis, and he helped us quite a bit with some knowledge in the dirt program. When we came here we were going to be the team to beat and our driver did a
great job.”

The mike’s hard lemonade Chevrolet was one of the first cars to qualify and posted the fourth fastest time for the 100-lap event. Once the green flag waved, Arpin patiently planned his attack, being sure to save his tires yet maintain that all-important track position.

While a little tight from the get-go, Arpin and his No. 55 Venturini crew took advantage of the numerous caution periods to make subtle adjustments to his machine. During one of the 11 cautions, the No. 55 came to pit road directly behind the leader. Unfortunately, most of the other competitors who came to pit road took only two tires while
others opted to stay out. Arpin would have to restart in 19th…but that’s when the real excitement began.

The Canadian-native vigilantly raced his way through the field making it back into the top-five by the midway point. With the leader (Tom Hessert) clearly within his sights, Arpin determined that by adjusting his lines he could make up ground where he was being beaten. His vast dirt experience was unmistakable as Arpin shot to the lead by lap 61.
Even having to display extreme patience battling with lapped traffic, Arpin never looked back once he got to the front!

“It was a hard fought win,” explained Arpin. “There were five more cautions after we got the lead…that put the field back on our bumper each time. But we were able to gain a 15 to 20 car-length advantage after each restart and then just settle in and save our equipment for the end. Mark Richards of Rocket Chassis (dirt late model chassis
manufacturer) was also a great help in our dirt efforts and really improved our program with his experience and expertise.”

Arpin went on to win by six-tenths of a second after a green / white / checker finish.

The next event on the ARCA calendar will take the tour to Toledo (Ohio) Speedway for the Northwest Ohio Ford Dealers 200 Sunday afternoon, September 12th.

VOTE Steve Arpin for 2010 ARCA Series Most Popular Driver @
www.arcanation.com.

- Steve Arpin Motorsports Press Release