Dan Falloon
Steve Arpin had to be a gamblin’ man at Talladega over the weekend.
The Fort Frances native channelled thoughts from a fellow driver as he took to the superspeedway in Alabama for a pair of races this past weekend, including his debut in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series.
“Kevin Harvick explained Talladega best,” Arpin recalled in a phone interview yesterday. “It’s just like walking into a casino and betting on red or black in roulette.
“If you bet on black, half the time it’s going to land on red and you’re walking away disappointed, and half the time it’ll land on black and you’re walking away with a pocket full of cash.”
Arpin said at that racetrack, which tends to force racers into tight packs, there can be situations that are out of a driver’s hands.
“The one thing about Talladega is that there’s only so much you can control,” he explained.
“All you can do as a driver, and as a team, is to put yourself in position to have a shot at making a run for the win at the end,” he reasoned.
In Sunday’s Nationwide race, the Aaron’s 312, which was delayed a day due to rain, Arpin ran well for much of the way—hovering in second place at one point.
But he was dinged for speeding in the pit area and tumbled to a 26th-place finish.
“I learned a whole bunch,” Arpin enthused. “We held in there for the whole race until I got caught speeding on pit row, so we were just a little too fast on pit row there.
“It really, really hurt us,” he remarked. “We had to come back in and there were no more caution flags left to get us caught up to the field, and it just really hurt us.
“That was a costly mistake on my part and something definitely to learn from, and it won’t happen again,” he vowed.
Arpin had set himself up well for the race, sitting fourth on the starting grid.
But the race proved to be a roller-coaster for the 26-year-old as he tumbled to 16th spot on just the second lap.
“With restrictor-plate racing, you can be in second one lap or leading one lap and then back to 15th the next,” he explained.
After the speeding penalty, he ended up crashing on Lap 113 after making contact with Colin Braun.
“We got clocked in the big one at the end and that was the end of our day, for sure,” noted Arpin.
He had completed 118 of 120 laps when Brad Keselowski crossed the finish line.
Still, Arpin was looking at the positives, knowing a tweak in his performance could have resulted in a much different result.
And at the end of the day, he was thrilled to have been driving against some of the top drivers on the NASCAR loop.
“It was really cool,” he remarked. “That’s when it really set in, when I was out there racing with them, that we’ve accomplished what we’ve accomplished, being out there with Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray.
“Racing with these guys all the way through to the end, it was absolutely incredible.”
Arpin also used Sunday’s race to network with some of the drivers, hoping to shun the rookie stigma sooner rather than later.
“It’s all about earning the respect of the people you’re racing with so that they’ll work with you,” he reasoned.
“Until I get a couple races under my belt, I’m not going to have that respect from the veterans, and it’s just one of those deals that you have to go out there and earn your stripes.
“We got a lot of compliments after the race,” Arpin added. “We had a lot of people that were really happy, and it’ll be a lot better the next time when we go back to Daytona in July.”
One of the biggest votes of confidence Arpin received, however, came before the race as he signed a one-year contract with JR Motorsports that takes him to the end of this season, and includes an option for 2011.
“We’re just going to play it by ear,” enthused Arpin. “It’s a great opportunity.
“To be with one of the most premier teams, the premier team in the series, it really honestly hasn’t even set in yet.
“It’s just wild. I can’t even begin to explain it.”
Arpin won’t be on the Nationwide circuit full-time as he is committed to the ARCA Series, where he sits in second place in the points standings.
“Our main focus is going to be the ARCA Series this year, and we’ve committed to that and we’ve got to see that through to the end, and hopefully go for the championship over there at Venturini Motorsports,” Arpin said.
“That’s going to be our main focus, and we’re going to do as many races as we can in between there,” he noted.
In addition to Sunday’s Nationwide race, Arpin also took part in the Talladega ARCA 250 on Friday night, finishing 14th after posting two-consecutive wins on the ARCA circuit.
In doing so, he surrendered his points lead to Justin Marks, whose 1,295 total Arpin now trails by 20.
Friday’s result stemmed from a gamble that didn’t pay off.
“We did what we needed to do all race long, and we sat in second for the last 30 or 40 laps in the ARCA race, and we made our run on the last lap,” Arpin recalled.
“[But] the leader blocked and we just got turned around by the guy behind us, so it’s just one of those deals.”
