Press Release
Steve Arpin ended last Thursday’s ARCA RE/MAX Series Kansas Lottery 150 at the Kansas Speedway with an eighth-place finish—good enough to move the Fort Frances racing talent up to sixth place in the driver standings.
Although it marked Arpin’s 11th top-10 finish of the season, the final rundown was no indication of just how strong Arpin drove the Venturini Motorsports No. 15 car.
The 2009 numbers game took another turn of sorts for Arpin.
During the last half of this season, Arpin drove the No. 25 car for Venturini Motorsports. But a one-off deal for the event put Arpin’s teammate, Jessie Smith, behind the wheel of that car and moved Arpin into the No. 15.
Since qualifying was rained out, the starting grid was aligned by owners’ points and that ironically placed Arpin in the 25th position versus starting eighth had he been in the #25 car.
When the green flag waved, Arpin was not deterred by his starting spot and immediately went to work moving up through the field.
In just the first three laps, he had sliced his way up to 17th—picking up eight spots when the yellow caution flag came out for the first time of the day on Lap 4.
Arpin lit the fuse again when green flag action resumed and had moved into the top 10 by the 15th lap, using the high side of the race track to blitz past competitors in three-wide fashion.
After the race’s third caution, Arpin had improved 20 positions and into the top five by Lap 35.
Then after pitting during the fourth caution flag of the day, Arpin restarted in ninth spot on Lap 45 and would reel in several drivers to close in again on the leaders and battle with Frank Kimmel for the fifth spot for the next 30 laps.
A late race caution occurred on Lap 94 which would result in a number of cars pitting for fresh tires—and set up a wild scramble in the race’s green-white-checkered conclusion.
As the field raced across the stripe, Arpin would be scored in the eighth spot.
Arpin’s inaugural ARCA season will come to an end this Sunday (Oct. 11) at the American 200 season-finale from Rockingham Speedway.
Justin Lofton and Parker Kligerman, sitting one and two in the points standings with just 15 points separating them, are the only two drivers mathematically eligible to earn the series championship.
Arpin is sixth with 4,260 points through 20 races.
