By the lap 40 benchmark, the lead margin was cut by two seconds, with Jones moving up to second as he gave chase to Weatherman. He finally assumed the top spot again at lap 49 when Weatherman pitted — moments before Zane Smith lost a right front tire and pounded the outside wall in turn three.
Smith climbed out of the car under his own power but quickly lowered himself to the ground, clutching his left knee as he talked to safety workers but later confirming that he was okay after being released from the infield care center.
A half-spin by Riley Herbst handed the lead to Vinnie Miller, who won the race off pit road and assumed command on the next restart with 41 to go, but disaster struck as the two leaders battled hard entering Turn 3.
Herbst got loose on the bottom of the track and slammed into Miller on the outside, sending Miller’s No. 41 hard into the outside wall before Herbst spun and got a piece of the outside wall in his own right.
All the while, Weatherman was racing into Turn 4 side-by-side with Kyle Benjamin for the provisional lead, taking the top spot when Benjamin spun down to the inside of the corner.
Racing resumed with 35 laps left, and though Jones tried to keep pace with Weatherman on the restart, the Missouri native kept Jones pinched down in Turns 1 and 2 and drove off to a two-second lead before Jones could regroup and close again.
As Jones applied pressure, the mistake he was hoping for finally came on lap 94, when Weatherman got high and smacked the outside wall at the exit of Turn 2. As Weatherman slowed, Jones drove around and drove off into the sunset.
Though Weatherman led 71 of the race’s 100 laps, his late race issues relegated him to 14th, two laps down at the finish.
“We hit the bottom of 1 and 2 there, and after that it completely shot all the way up to the wall,” Weatherman lamented. “We did freaking everything we needed to do today; it’s just unfortunate that something broke or something happened.”
“I can’t thank everybody at Mason Mitchell Motorsports; obviously, they put their heart and soul into this thing. Very unfortunate … we’ll be at Iowa next and maybe we can get them there.”
Points leader Austin Theriault came home second after Chad Finley had to make a late-race pit stop, followed by Dalton Sargeant and Bret Holmes.
Gus Dean completed the top five, running third on the last lap before having to limp home with a flat tire.
Ty Majeski, Kyle Benjamin, Codie Rohrbaugh and Spencer Davis were the rest of the cars that finished on the lead lap.
The ARCA Racing Series returns to action on June 23 with the Montgomery Ward 200 at Madison Int’l Speedway.
Full race results can be viewed on the next page…
